Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
in  California 


Robert  Louis  *Stevenson 
in  California 

By 
Katharine  D.  Osbourne 

With  Sixty-nine  Illustrations 


Chicago 

A.  a  McClurg  m  Co. 
igii 


^ 


^ 


&l^ 


COPTRIGHT 

A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co. 
1911 


Published,  December,  1911 


Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  LoDdon,  England 


THE  •  PLIMPTON  •   PRESS 

(W- D-O ] 
NOSWOOD  •  MASS  •  U  •  S  •  A 


>j',^''jijj>      D  *>'      5      *>>       'JJJ^O 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Robert  Louis 

FACING 
FAQE 


Stevenson FrorUisjnece 

i 

Carmel  Bay 

Pines  at  Monterey 

Cypress  Trees,  Monterey 

A  Bit  of  Monterey  Coast 

Midway  Point,  Monterey  Coast 

Gull  Rock,  Monterey 

House    in  which    Robert    Louis    Stevenson    Roomed,        ^ 

Monterey 

The  HaU  of  Records  in  House  of  the  Winds.  Monterey         7 

Sunset,  near  Witch  Cypress,  Monterey 10 

Cypress  Point,  Monterey 

The  Coast,  near  the  Pacific  Camp  Grounds  .      ...       13 

13 
Old  Cypress  Tree 

The  First  Theater  in  California 

View  of  the  Town  of  Monterey 

.     .       16 

Jules  Simoneau 

Drawn  from  Life  by  Theodore  J.  Keane 

Washington  Hotel,  Monterey 

Chinese  Fishing  Village,  Monterey  Bay 18 

Jules  Simoneau 

OS  Monterey 

Bay  and  Sand  Dunes,  Monterey 

Point  Pinos  Light  House 


[v] 


226793 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACING 
PAGE 

Custom  House,  Monterey 27 

The  Valley  of  Carmel  and  the  Old  Mission  Church  .  27 

A  Forest  Walk,  Monterey 28 

Carmel  Mission 31 

Aa  Stevenson  Knew  it  be/ore  it  was  Restored 

Waves  on  Monterey  Coast 32 

Monterey  Cypress  Trees 32 

The  Carsons'  House 34 

No.  60S  Bush  Street,  San  Francisco 

Mrs.   Mary  Carson,  with  Stevenson's  Step-Grandchil- 
dren      39 

The  Carson  Children 42 

A  Picture  Taken  for  Stevenson 

Mr.  Carson 42 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 47 

Taken  shortly  before  he  Left  Scotland  for  California 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 47 

Taken  in  San  Francisco,  1880 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 49 

A  Picture  never  before  Published 

Approach  to  San  Francisco 51 

The  Narrows,  San  Francisco 51 

Judge  John  H.  Boalt 62 

Of  San  Francisco 

Thomas  Wilkinson 62 

Of  Oakland 

Tamalpais 66 

Another  View  of  Tamalpais 66 

Studio  in  California  Art  School,  1879 69 

Stevenson's  Last  View  of  San  Francisco      ....  76 

In   the  Track   of   the  San    Francisco-Oakland   Ferry- 

Boats 76 

Woods,  near  St.  Helena 79 

Woods,  on  the  Way  to  Silverado 79 

Williams'  Ranch,  St.  Helena 81 


[vi] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FAcrsa 

PAGE 

Toll  House,  Silverado 81 

On  the  Way  to  Silverado 82 

Mount  Saint  Helena 85 

Near  View  of  Mount  Saint  Helena 85 

Toll  Gate  and  Inn  at  Silverado,  Mount  Saint  Helena  .  86 

Mount  Tamalpais 86 

The  Tunnel  at  Silverado ^^ 

Used  by  Stevenson  Jor  a  Wine  Cellar 

Railway  from  the  Tunnels  to  the  Chute,  Silverado    .  91 

The  Shafts,  Silverado 92 

The  Blacksmith's  Forge,  Silverado 92 

Madrona  and  Manzanita  Trees 95 

In  the  Woods,  near  Silverado 95 

Sea  Fog  Filling  Napa  Valley 96 

French  Residence  of  Stevenson 99 

Whence     he   Despatched  his   Letter  to   Simoneau   and   Finished 
"  Silverado  Squatters" 

Virgil  Williams ^^^ 

Dr.  W.  Bamford ^^^ 

East  Oakland 
Stevenson's     Monument,     Portsmouth     Square,     San 

Francisco 1^8 


[vii] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


Custom  House,  Monterey 27 

The  Valley  of  Carmel  and  the  Old  Mission  Church  .  27 

A  Forest  Walk,  Monterey 28 

Carmel  Mission 31 

As  Stevenson  Knew  it  before  it  was  Restored 

Waves  on  Monterey  Coast 32 

Monterey  Cypress  Trees 32 

The  Carsons'  House 34 

No.  60S  Bush  Street,  San  Francisco 

Mrs.  Mary  Carson,  with  Stevenson's  Step-Grandchil- 
dren      39 

The  Carson  Children 42 

A  Picture  Taken  for  Stevenfon 

Mr.  Carson 42 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 47 

Taken  shortly  before  he  Left  Scotland  for  California 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 47 

Taken  in  San  Francisco,  1880 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 49 

A  Picture  never  before  Published 

Approach  to  San  Francisco 51 

The  Narrows,  San  Francisco 51 

Judge  John  H.  Boalt 62 

Of  San  Francisco 

Thomas  Wilkinson 62 

Of  Oakland 

Tamalpais 66 

Another  View  of  Tamalpais 66 

Studio  in  California  Art  School,  1879 69 

Stevenson's  Last  View  of  San  Francisco      ....  76 

In   the  Track   of   the   San    Francisco-Oakland   Ferry- 
Boats       76 

Woods,  near  St.  Helena 79 

Woods,  on  the  Way  to  Silverado 79 

Williams'  Ranch,  St.  Helena 81 


[vi] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACTS a 
PAGE 

Toll  House,  Silverado ^^ 

On  the  Way  to  Silverado 82 

Mount  Saint  Helena 85 

Near  View  of  Mount  Saint  Helena 85 

Toll  Gate  and  Inn  at  Silverado,  Mount  Saint  Helena  .  86 

Mount  Tamalpais 86 

The  Tunnel  at  Silverado 91 

Used  by  Stevenson /or  a  Wine  Cellar 

Railway  from  the  Tunnels  to  the  Chute,  Silverado    .  91 

The  Shafts,  Silverado 92 

The  Blacksmith's  Forge,  Silverado 92 

Madrona  and  Manzanita  Trees 95 

In  the  Woods,  near  Silverado 95 

Sea  Fog  FUling  Napa  Valley 96 

French  Residence  of  Stevenson 99 

Whence     he   Despatched  his   Letter  to   Simoneau   and   Finished 
"  Silrerado  Squatters" 

Virgil  WiUiams ^^^ 

Dr.  W.  Bamford ^^^ 

East  Oakland 
Stevenson's     Monument,     Portsmouth     Square,     San 

Francisco ^^^ 


[vii] 


C  A  R  M  E  L     BAY 


PINES    AT     MONTEREY 


CYPRESS    TUEES,     MONTEREY 


tf 


A     BIT     OF    MONTEREY     COAST 


Robert    Louis    Stevenson 
in    California 

HE  wide  fame  of 
California  comes 
not  altogether 
from  her  natural 
benefits.  As 
much  as  in  these 
her  glory  rests  in 
her  heroes.  But, 
peculiarly,  they  were  not  born  on  the 
soil,  —  are  not  the  products  of  the 
poetry,  the  spirit,  and  the  occasion  of 
the  West  Coast,  but  were  attracted  from 
other  lands.  The  explanation  is  obvi- 
ous: lack  of  time,  lack  of  generations 
since  the  occupation  other  than  by  the 
aboriginal  Indians  and  the  scattered 
Spanish  settlers.  We  have  yet  to  look 
to  native  sons  and  daughters  for  native 
genius. 
/  But  of  all  the  borrowed  heroes  since 
Drake   and   the   Franciscan   friars,   per- 

[1] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

haps  not  another  has  brought  more 
honor  to  CaHfornia  than  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson.  He  came  and  went  and 
found  no  home  in  this  new  Western 
country.  From  his  coming  till  his  going 
1  was  less  than  a  twelvemonth.  He 
,  visited  few  parts  of  the  State,  only 
Monterey,  San  Francisco,  and  the  slopes 
of  Mount  Saint  Helena.  The  Sierras 
and  the  Sacramento  Valley  were  seen 
by  him  from  a  railway  car  window,  and 
the  San  Francisco  Bay  from  the  ferry- 
boat. Yet  this  cursory  visit  of  less  than 
a  year  in  time  has  made  Stevenson  sin- 
gularly Californian.  It  has  come  to  be 
that  these  facts  of  Stevenson's  abodes 
stand  out  above  all  others:  that  his  boy- 
hood was  passed  in  Scotland,  where  he 
was  born;  that  he  Hved  the  last  years  of 
his  life  in  the  South  Sea;  and  that  he 
spent  some  while  in  California.         '^ 

This   prominence    given   to   his    Cali- 
fornia  sojourn   is   due   chiefly   to   three 
reasons:    that  his  motive  in  coming  w^as 
after   a   piece   of   knight-errantry;    that 
[2] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

his  experiences  were  exceptional;  and 
that  subsequently  he  used  his  knowledge 
of  California  in  some  of  his  best  books. 
With  what  eyes  did  he  see!  With  what 
a  pen  did  he  write!  And  it  was  the 
peculiarity  of  his  art  that  he  communi- 
cated through  it  to  his  readers  something 
of  the  personal  charm  and  fascination  he 
exercised  over  those  who  knew^  him,  so 
that  for  the  countless  lovers  of  Stevenson 
in  every  corner  of  the  world  this  great 
Pacific  State  has  a  new  meaning,  and 
every  scene  familiar  to  him  is  endowed 
with  an  interest  both  tender  and  ro- 
mantic. Truly,  California  was  never 
more  fortunate  in  an  adopted  son,  who 
both  enhanced  and  spread  abroad  her 
honor. 

For  Stevenson  himself  his  coming  to 
Cahfornia  was  one  of  the  most  vital  and 
decisive  steps  in  his  life.  It  marked 
the  dividing  line  between  a  reckless, 
intense,  but  indulgent  youth  and  a  deep 
and  sincere  manhood. 

We  will  not  judge  too  harshly  his 
[3] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

early  vagaries  and  indiscretions.  As 
much  as  they  were  the  result  of  the  hot 
blood  of  youth  and  wayward  companions 
they  were  also  caused,  as  he  said  of 
Burns,  "from  being  formed  for  love;  he 
had  passion,  tenderness,  and  a  singular 
bent  in  the  direction;  he  could  foresee, 
with  the  intuition  of  an  artist,  what  lov^e 
ought  to  be,  and  he  could  not  conceive  a 
worthy  life  without  it;  he  was  greedy 
after  every  shadow  of  the  true  divinity." 
The  tempestuous,  intense,  betraying  tem- 
perament of  the  artist  and  lover  and  the 
generous,  noble  leanings  of  the  man 
were  for  long  conflicting  elements  in  his 
character. 

What  it  was  that  drew  those  forces 
into  one  where  they  no  longer  opposed 
but  served  each  other;  what  special 
circumstances  aroused  all  his  latent  con- 
scientiousness and  sincerity  and  deter- 
mined him  to  pursue  no  longer  broken 
ends  but  one  great  comprehensive  pur- 
pose in  which  soul  and  body  united,  is 
not  one  of  the  confidences  he  has  seen  fit 
[4] 


^ 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

to  make  us,  even  if  he  knew  himself.  It 
may  have  been,  as  he  described  another 
change  in  his  Hfe,  —  from  idleness  to 
industry:  "I  was  never  conscious  of  a 
struggle,  nor  registered  a  vow,  nor  seem- 
ingly had  anything  personally  to  do  with 
the  matter.  I  came  about  like  a  well- 
handled  ship.  There  stood  at  the  wheel 
that  unknown  steersman  whom  we  call 
God."  What  we  do  know  is  that  this 
wild  journey  from  Scotland  to  Cahfornia 
was  evidence  of  the  change. 

In  later  days,  in  retrospect  viewing 
some  acts  of  his  life,  he  sorro^\^ully  called 
himself  Don  Quixote.  His  proposed 
journey  to  America  was  at  that  time 
regarded  by  the  friends  in  his  confidence 
in  that  light,  but  it  was  sublime. 

In  poor  health  he  set  out,  and  with  little 
money  in  his  pocket,  and  small  prospects 
of  more,  since  he  had  voluntarily  cut 
himself  off  from  the  allowance  which  his 
father  had  always  made  him,  by  this 
step  contrary  to  his  father's  wishes. 
Neither  had  he  any  great  reputation  as 
[5] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

yet  in  his  chosen  profession  of  letters, 
nor  had  he  an  assured  pubHsher.  His 
heart  was  hea^'y  with  the  knowledge  of 
the  sorrow  he  was  causing  his  devoted 
parents,  whose  only  offspring  he  was, 
and  whom  he  himself  loved  dearly;  but 
he  saw  no  other  way  than  to  involve  them 
in  his  decision.  Yet  through  all,  his 
heart  never  quailed.  Worn  out  with  the 
discomforts  of  the  voyage  in  the  steer- 
age and  the  days  in  an  emigrant  train, 
''his  body  all  to  whistles,"  as  he  styled 
it,  made  melancholy  by  his  sordid  sur- 
roundings and  the  dreary  country  through 
which  he  was  carried,  he  still  was  sus- 
tained by  the  conviction,  "I  am  doing 
right."  "Our  journey  is  through  ghostly 
desert,  sagebrush  and  alkah,  and  rocks 
without  form  and  color,  a  sad  comer  of 
the  world.  Vse  are  going  along  Bitter 
Creek  just  now,  a  place  infamous  in  the 
historv^  of  emigration,  a  place  I  shall 
remember  myself  among  the  blackest." 
And  yet  he  had  but  one  explanation  in 
his  letter  to  a  friend.  "I  am  doing  right. 
[6] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

I  know  no  one  will  think  so,  and  don't 
care." 

"  Thin-legged  and  chested,  slight  unspeak- 
able. 
Neat-footed,  artist-handed — all  his  face 
Lean,  high-honed,  curved  of  nose,  and 
quick  with  race, 
The  brovm  eyes  glittering  loith  vivacity, 

"  Bold-lipped,  rich-tinted,  changeful  as  the 
sea. 
Is  instinct  unth  a  bright  romantic  grace 
Intense,  wild,  delicate  —  with  a  subtile 
trace 
Of  feminine  force  and  fitful  energy. 

"  Valiant  in  velvet,  light  in  ragged  luck. 
Most  vain,  most  sensitive,  keenly  criti- 
cal. 
Buffoon  and  poet,  lover  and  sensualist: 
Of  Bottom  take  a  little,  much  of  Puck, 
More  Cleopatra,  Hamlet  most  of  all. 
Combine,  restrain,  release,  and  —  have 
we  missed?'^ 

Inadequate    indeed!     And     the    lack 
W.  E.  Henley,  the  author  of  this  picture 
of    Stevenson  in  his  twenties,  tried   to 
[7] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

rectify  later  by  remodelling  his  verses  as 
they  were  finally  printed,  and  by  adding 
."Shorter  Catechist,"  but  that  were  far 
from  sufficient  portrayal  for  the  mature 
man. 

J  Stevenson  was  always  a  wanderer. 
When  his  mother  once  expostulated  with 
him,  he  laughingly  responded,  **You 
should  not  have  had  a  tramp  for  a  son." 
He  was  fond  of  vagabond  journeys,  and 
as  often  as  opportunity  permitted,  he 
indulged  his  g^psy  propensities,  for  nov- 
elty, for  reckless  gayety,  for  experiences, 
and  to  learn  new  sides  of  life.  Or 
often  it  was  to  escape  from  himself  and 
the  demon  hauntings  of  a  too  active 
mind  that  knew  no  appeasement,  that  he 
went  on  long  walking  tours,  voyaged  in  a 
yacht,  or  travelled  with  a  donkeyy  And 
that  characteristic  which  we  spoke  of 
at  first  was  a  cause  of  some  of  these 
migrations;  for  with  all  Stevenson's  great 
capacity  for  love,  and  with  his  heart  ever 
ready  to  bestow  it,  he  seems  not  to  have 
inspired  with  a  Uke  devotion  the  young 
[81 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

women  he  admired.  '*That  they  cared 
not  for  him,  for  the  flesh  on  his  bones," 
was  the  way  he  bitterly  put  it. 

His  first  love  was  a  fiasco.  The  young 
lady  would  not  take  him  seriously,  made 
light  of  his  protestations,  but  did  what 
she  could  to  break  his  heart.  And  he 
told  a  friend  in  California  that  even 
then,  years  after,  he  could  not  bear  to 
think  on  that  time.  The  second  affair 
was  still  more  serious  and  even  less  for- 
tunate, for  it  continued  over  the  years 
in  w^hich,  if  his  heart  had  been  free,  he  in 
all  probability  w^ould  have  had  it  engaged 
in  a  more  happy  venture.  The  lady 
yielded  to  his  devotion,  pleased  and 
flattered  probably  by  so  much  ardent 
and  sincere  passion  on  the  part  of  one  who 
already  began  to  give  evidence  of  his 
unusual  intellectual  endowments,  if  not 
of  his  genius;  but  at  last  she  changed 
for  another  attachment,  which  left  young 
Stevenson  bereft  in  heart,  ''caring  not 
whether  he  lived  or  died." 

Thus,  twice,  change  and  travel  were  the 
[9] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

antidotes  he  applied  to  his  wounded  and 
tortured  affections.  The  Inland  Voyage 
was  one  of  these;  and  it  is  worthy  of 
notice  that  with  all  its  confessions,  of  the 
tormented  state  of  his  heart  there  is  not 
the  least  intimation.  But  then  Steven- 
son himself  has  said,  "I  believe  that  liter- 
ature should  give  joy'';  and  he  held  that 
a  dispirited  word  wns  a  crime  against 
mankind. 

A  third  deep  attachment  followed 
quickly  on  the  failure  of  the  second. 
Quoting  once  more  from  Stevenson's 
essay  on  Burns,  we  may  find  the  reason. 
*'It  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  touching 
things  in  human  nature,  as  it  is  a  com- 
monplace of  psycholog3%  that  when  a 
man  has  just  lost  hope  or  confidence  in 
one  love,  he  is  then  most  eager  to  find 
and  lean  upon  another.  The  universe 
could  not  be  yet  exhausted;  there  must 
be  hope  and  love  waiting  for  him  some- 
where." 

Going  to  join  some  painter  friends  in 
a  small  village,  called  Gretz,  lying  just 
[101 


vi 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

outside  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau,  in 
France,  a  place  frequented  in  summer 
by  artist  students  from  Paris,  Stevenson, 
fresh  from  his  Inland  Voyage,  met  an 
American  lady,  Mrs.  Osbourne,  for  whom 
he  conceived  a  warm  regard  from  the 
first,  and  a  knightly  interest  on  account 
of  some  unfortunate  circumstances  in 
her  hfe.  The  friendship  was  maintained 
throughout  the  rest  of  the  lady's  visit 
abroad.  In  Paris,  at  Gretz  again,  and 
in  London  they  continued  to  see  each 
other  until  her  departure  with  her  chil- 
dren for  her  home  in  California. 

But  this  was  not  to  be  the  end.  Sepa- 
ration did  not  bring  forgetfulness. 
Nearly  a  year  afterward,  on  receiving 
an  appeal  by  cable  from  Mrs.  Osbourne, 
he  did  not  hesitate  for  an  instant  to 
hasten  to  her  side.  Stevenson's  chivalry 
toward  all  women  was  infinite,  and  his 
heart  was  always  full  of  sympathy  for 
their  unequal  position.  Exhibitions  of 
vanity  and  meanness  in  men's  relations 
to  women,  witnessed  all  too  frequently, 

[11] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

drew  from  him  vehement  indignation 
and  pity. 

An  exalted  sense  of  fidehty  was  now 
drawing  him  westward.  With  no  word 
to  his  parents  about  his  going,  in  the 
early  part  of  August,  1879,  and  in  the 
twenty -ninth  year  of  his  age,  he  departed 
from  Edinburgh  bound  for  the  far-away 
and  unknown  Western  world. 

In  this  volume  we  are  not  to  concern 
ourselves  with  the  whole  journey,  but 
for  the  fuller  understanding  of  the  Cali- 
fornia episode  we  must  take  up  the  tale 
just  before  his  arrival.  There  can  be 
no  adequate  notion  of  the  green,  fruitful 
slopes  of  the  Pacific  Coast  without  set- 
ting them  in  mind  against  the  vast  and 
terrible  rocky  wilderness  that  lies  behind 
the  Sierras.  The  long  journey  through 
waste  plains,  without  a  tree,  without  a 
patch  of  sward,  nothing  but  sage  brush, 
eternal  sage  brush,  through  amorphous 
mountains  without  a  commanding  peak, 
masses  of  tumbled  boulders,  and  for 
color,  gray  verging  toward  brown,  gray 
[12] 


C  A  LI  FOR 


f 


1 


i 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

verging  toward  black,  is  greatly  dispirit- 
ing. His  words  make  our  hearts  leap 
as  did  his  own  on  the  occasion,  as  he 
depicts  the  leaving  behind  of  the  un- 
sightly desert  and  the  sudden  shifting  of 
the  scene  as  the  train  of  the  Central 
Pacific  Railway  shot  out  from  the  sterile 
canons  of  Emigrant  Pass  and  began  its 
plunge  down  the  seaward  slopes  of  the 
Sierras,  —  a  picture  of  color,  freshness, 
and  loveliness. 

In  his  book  which  describes  the  w^hole 
journey,  "Across  the  Plains,"  and  in  his 
letters  to  his  friends  he  dwells  upon  the 
theme.  And  memory  rejoices  to  recall 
each  new  feature  which  greeted  his  eye 
as  the  train  wound  its  way  downward 
into  the  valley  of  the  Sacramento  River, 
—  sweeps  of  forest  dropping  thousands 
of  feet  toward  the  far  sea  level,  spires 
of  pines  along  the  sky  line,  the  cascades 
and  trouty  pools  of  a  mountain  river, 
Blue  Canon,  Alta,  Dutch  Flat,  and  all 
the  old  mining  camps,  and  hillsides  of 
orchards  and  vineyards.  Finally,  set  in 
[13] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

a  plain  of  wheat  fields,  the  garden  city 
of  Sacramento  was  reached  and  later 
Oakland,  beside  the  blue  expanse  of  San 
Francisco  Bay.  It  was  early  morning 
when  Stevenson  crossed  the  bay  on  the 
ferry-boat.  The  sun  was  just  beginning 
to  gild  the  head  and  spread  itself  over 
the  shapely  shoulders  of  Tamalpais,  the 
unweary  sentry  at  the  Golden  Gate. 
And  the  sea  fog,  opalescent  in  the  morn- 
ing sunshine,  rose  over  the  citied  hills  of 
San  Francisco. 

Nine  years  afterward,  when  in  the 
trading  schooner  Equator,  on  his  way  to 
the  Gilbert  Islands  in  the  Pacific,  when 
he  began  "The  Wrecker,"  his  mind  went 
back  again  to  the  same  scenes  and  he 
brought  his  hero  by  the  same  way  and 
described  again  his  own  first  golden 
glimpse  of  California. 

Throughout  his  travelling  he  had  been 
suffering  in  his  health  from  his  usual 
complaint,  weak  lungs,  and  he  had  gotten 
at  a  way-side  eating  place  some  food  that 
acted  on  him  hke  poison.  That  he  had 
[U] 


^•^p 


■I 


n 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

been  able  to  complete  the  journey,  that 
he  had  not  fallen  by  the  way,  was  due  to 
sheer  force  of  will.  He  did  not  stop 
longer  in  San  Francisco  than  to  get  his 
train  for  Monterey  where  Mrs.  Osbourne 
was  at  that  time  staying  and  awaiting 
his  coming.  He  collapsed  utterly  on  his 
arrival  there.  Open  air  was  always  his 
remedy  in  illness  and  now  he  thought  to 
try  it  again.  After  seeing  Mrs.  Osbourne 
he  took  a  horse  and  went  on  eighteen 
miles  farther  to  an  Angora  goat  ranch 
in  the  Santa  Lucia  Mountains. 

Of  the  owners  of  the  ranch  one  was 
Captain  Smith,  an  old  man,  a  great  bear- 
hunter,  who  had  been  in  the  Mexican 
wars;  the  other  was  a  pilgrim  w^ho  had 
been  out  with  the  Bear  Flag  under 
Fremont  when  California  was  taken  by 
the  States,  —  men  of  action  and  adven- 
ture much  after  Stevenson's  own  heart. 

In  the  first  days  he  camped  alone  out 
under  a  tree.  He  was  terribly  ill,  dan- 
gerously so.  He  could  do  nothing  but 
fetch  water  for  himself  and  his  horse, 
[15] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

light  a  fire,  and  make  coffee.     After  four 
days,    Captain   Smith   happened    round 
where   he   was,    and   finding   Stevenson 
and  pronouncing  him  "real"  sick,  took 
him  to  his  house,  where,  together  with 
his   partner,   he  tended  him  with   true 
frontier    hospitahty  and    kindness,   pre- 
scribing homely  remedies  and  treatment. 
Captain  Smith's  wife  was  away  from 
home,  but  there  were  the  children  with 
their  father.     When  Stevenson  was  better 
he  showed  his  appreciation  of  their  good- 
ness to  him  in  such  way  as  he  could, 
by  giving  the  children  reading  lessons. 
And  since  Stevenson  was  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  readers  himself,  it  may  be  hoped 
that  they  were  helped  to  an  accomplish- 
ment with  which  Stevenson  frequently 
delighted  his  family  circle.     After  three 
weeks    he    was    sufficiently    revived    in 
health  to  return    to    Monterey. 
V    His    money    was    already    nearly    ex- 
hausted.    He    did    not    know    of     an 
amount  which  at  the   time  lay   in  the 
New  York  post-office,  sent  by  his  father 
[16] 


U\'A 


\ 


J  C  L  E  S     S  I  M  O  N  E  A  U 

D  r  a  u-  H  from    Life   by    Theodore     J. 
K  e  II  u  e 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

and  mother  on  finding  that  he  had 
started  to  America,  without  leaving  an 
address.  They  despatched  it  to  him  to 
the  general  delivery  of  New  York  City, 
in  hopes  that  he  might  call  there  for 
his  mail. 

He  found  in  the  large  adobe  house  of 
Dr.  Heintz,  a  Frenchman,  upstairs,  in 
the  ell,  two  airy  rooms  with  five  windows 
opening  on  a  balcony.  The  rooms  were 
barely  furnished,  but  it  seems  that  there 
was  even  more  furniture  than  Stevenson 
wanted;  for  he  did  not  occupy  the  bed, 
but  slept  on  the  floor  in  camp  blankets. 
For  his  meals  he  went  to  a  httle  restau- 
rant kept  also  by  a  Frenchman,  M.  Jules 
Simoneau.  It  was  a  humble  affair:  a 
small  wine  room  in  front  and  a  dining- 
room  behind.  In  the  little  whitewashed 
back  room  where  the  table  was  spread, 
there  were  daily  gathered  with  Stevenson, 
Francis,  the  baker,  Augustin  Dutra,  an 
Italian  fisherman,  and  Simoneau  himself; 
and  now  and  then  a  rancher  from  the 
mountains,  staying  in  town  over  night, 
[17] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

joined  them.  They  were  waited  on  by  a 
kind,  quiet  Mazatlan  Indian  woman  who 
was  Simoneau's  sole  helper  in  his  business. 

The  matter  of  a  place  to  lodge  and 
board  having  been  settled,  Stevenson  set 
himself  down  to  the  serious  matter  of 
writing.  He  began  first  of  all  to  pre- 
pare for  publication  the  notes  he  had 
made  on  the  steamship  Devonia,  in  which 
he  had  come  across  the  Atlantic,  thus 
beginning  "The  Amateur  Emigrant." 

After  this,  he  partly  wrote  a  novel, 
which  was  later  given  up,  deemed  by 
him  of  little  merit.  It  may  have  sunk 
under  the  burden  of  its  long  and  pompous 
title,  "A  Chapter  in  the  Experiences  of 
Arizona  Breckonridge;  or,  A  Vendetta  of 
the  West."  Had  this  work  ever  been 
completed  it  is  safe  to  conjecture  it  would 
not  have  been  thus  finally  christened. 

"The  Pavilion  on  the  Links"  was 
written  in  Monterey;  also,  the  essays  on 
Thoreau  and  the  Japanese  reformer  Yo- 
shida  Torajiro.  "Prince  Otto"  was 
planned,  to  be  completed  much  later, 
[18  1 


'/'^ 


m 
I 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

after  he  had  returned  to  Europe,  and  he 
made  copious  notes  for  "The  Old  Pacific 
Capital." 

^Yhat  dehghted  Stevenson  in  Monterey 
was  its  climate,  its  situation,  and  its  Old 
World  flavor  in  this  new  land;  ''its  pines 
and  sand  and  distant  hills,  and  a  bay  all 
filled  with  real  water  from  the  Pacific." 
Its  small  population  he  laughingly  desig- 
nated as  "about  that  of  a  dissenting 
chapel  on  a  wet  Sunday  in  a  strong 
Church  neighborhood."  And  the  people 
he  said  were  "mostly  Mexican  and 
Indian  —  mixed." 

It  was  here  in  this  lovely  village  of 
Monterey,  the  air  ever  pervaded  with 
the  eternal  roaring  of  the  surf  of  the 
ocean,  a  background  of  pine-grown  hills, 
the  valley  of  the  Carmel  near  by,  and 
the  old  Mission  church,  Point  Labos, 
and  rocks  and  inlets  and  cypresses,  that 
Stevenson  conceived  a  great  love  for  the 
Pacific.  Later  it  led  him  to  turn  his 
back  forever  on  his  inclement  native 
land  and  spend  all  the  last  years  of  his 
[19] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

life  on  its  bosom,  rocked  in  small  sea- 
going vessels,  or  on  some  of  its  tiny 
islands. 

Stevenson's  great  friend  in  Monterey- 
was  Jules  Simoneau,  who  kept  the  restau- 
rant. He  was  a  man  of  unusual  intelli- 
gence, much  of  a  philosopher,  and,  like  all 
his  countrymen,  appreciative  of  beauty 
and  art.  No  better  adviser  had  the 
young  art  students  that  congregated  in 
Monterey  than  he,  and  from  none  did 
they  receive  more  wise  and  stimulating 
counsel.  It  happened  in  later  days  that 
,  Simoneau  came  to  be  a  sort  of  oracle 
among  the  artists,  and  their  sentimental 
interest  in  him  was  increased  by  his  old 
friendship  with  Stevenson. 

Simoneau  missed  Stevenson  one  day 
from  the  restaurant,  and  the  next,  and  the 
third  day.  As  he  had  said  nothing  about 
going  out  of  town,  Simoneau  became 
alarmed.  He  went  round  to  his  rooms, 
but  found  the  door  locked.  A  handful 
of  pebbles  from  the  walk  thrown  against 
the  panes  brought  Stevenson  to  the 
[20] 


'>^., 


'fe^.T^ 


U-jf 


•^^^^s 


ri 


i«t!>uf  ^     C  ■i=''.. 


f  • 


(>fe*;-.i^-it- 


JULES     S I  M  O  N  E  A  U 

Of  Monterey 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

window,  but  he  showed  the  face  of  a 
very  sick  man. 

Simoneau  constituted  himself  sick- 
nurse  at  once.  He  tended  Stevenson 
with  great  care,  brought  his  meals  to  his 
room,  and,  knowing  his  shortness  of 
money,  opened  his  poor  purse  to  him 
to  the  extent  of  all   it  contained. 

Years  afterward,  when  Stevenson  was 
dead  and  Simoneau  gro\\Ti  old,  and  the 
wine  room  and  restaurant  were  closed,  he 
and  Madame  became  very  poor,  but  they 
never  considered  selling  their  autographed 
Stevenson  first  editions,  sent  them  by 
Stevenson  from  the  different  places  he 
was  afterward  living  in  in  Europe;  nor 
Stevenson's  letters,  though  they  were 
offered  more  than  once  an  amount  that 
would  have  raised  them  above  penury. 
Simoneau  would  not  even  allow  their 
publication,  saying,  "They  were  not  to 
the  public,  they  were  Louis's  letters  to 
me."  But  day  by  day  Madame,  in  her 
neat  calico  dress,  made  Mexican  tamales; 
and  Simoneau,  with  flowing  white  beard 
[21] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

and  in  clean  blue  overalls,  basket  on  arm, 
peddled  them  on  the  streets  of  Monterey. 

Sadder  days  than  these  were  yet 
in  store  for  Simoneau.  Madame  died; 
Simoneau,  through  age,  became  too 
feeble  to  work.  But  lovers  of  Stevenson 
would  not  see  the  old  man  suffer  or  be 
forced  to  part  with  his  books  or  letters, 
but  gladly  supplied  his  needs.  To  these 
friends  he  was  fond  of  conversing  about 
Stevenson,  or  "Louis,"  as  he  always 
spoke  of  him.  To  Robert  C.  Porter, 
whom  he  knew  would  respect  his  desire 
to  keep  it  private  during  his  lifetime, 
he  presented  a  copy  of  the  most  remark- 
able of  Stevenson's  letters,  which  appears 
in  another  place  in  this  volume,  among 
others  to  his   California  friends. 

The  following  is  a  letter  from  Simoneau 
to  Mr.  Porter: 

Monterey, 
March  20,  1899 
Mb.  Robert  CusmiAN  Porter, 

San  Fr.\ncisco. 
Dear  Sir,  —  Many    thanks    for    your    kind    remem- 
brances.    I   received   both   the   photograph   and   the 
book. 

[221 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

I  will  never  forget  your  praising  appreciation  of  the 
old  philosopher  type.  I  am  proud  of  it.  If  ever  j'ou 
come  to  Monterey,  or  if  some  of  your  friends  of  the 
same  kind  as  yourself  come  to  Monterey,  do  not  forget 
the  old  man.  He  will  be  glad  always  to  receive  you 
or  your  friends.  Those  visits  will  carry  me  back 
twenty-five  years  and  make  me  as  many  years  younger. 
Hoping  to  see  you  again,  I  remain 

Yours  truly, 

J.    SiMONEAU 

Best  regards  from  my  wife. 

I  had  yesterday  a  letter  from  Miss asking 

me  the  privilege  of  having  the  letters  of  Stevenson 
photographed  for  a  firm  of  New  York  or  from  the  east. 
The  answer,  as  you  think,  has  been  a  refusal  on  the 
ground  that  I  do  not  want  them  published.  After  my 
death,  maybe,  my  heirs  will  part  with  them.  As  for 
me,  I  esteem  them  at  such  price  that  no  money  can  get 
them  out  of  my  hands,  to  have  them  given  to  the 
public.  I  want  them  for  myself.  A  word  from  time 
to  time  from  you  will  be  always  welcome. 

J.  S. 

The  illness  in  which  he  was  nursed  by 
Simoneau  was  a  sad  blow  to  Stevenson. 
His  lungs  were  always  weak.  He  had 
suffered  more  than  once  such  attacks  of 
prostration  as  he  had  on  the  Angora 
goat  ranch  in  the  Santa  Lucia  Mountains. 
But  while  living  quietly  in  a  mild  climate, 
to  start  a  pleuritic  fever  was  a  terrible 
disappointment.  He  felt,  as  he  had  not 
[23] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

done  before,  the  certainty  of  death  if  he 
could  not  have  rest  and  freedom  from 
anxieties.  He  did  not  wish  to  die,  for 
within  himself  he  was  conscious  with 
what  great  talents  he  had  been  endowed, 
which  in  his  mind  carried  with  them 
great  responsibilities.  He  was  ambitious 
as  well,  if  not  seljSshly  so,  and  believed  he 
was  capable  of  better  literary  work  than 
even  his  most  intimate  friends  had  imag- 
ined, if  only  health  were  given  him. 
That  he  lived  to  verify  his  own  judgment 
of  himself,  and  that  English  literature 
was  greatly  enriched  by  his  later  volumes, 
is  much  due  to  the  care  Jules  Simoneau 
gave  him. 

Monterey  is  a  towTi  of  two  or  three 
streets,  "economically  paved  with  sea- 
sand,"  grass-grown  and  cut  with  gulhes 
washed  out  by  the  rains.  They  are 
unlit  save  by  beams  from  the  house- 
windows.  The  houses  for  the  most  part 
are  built  of  unbaked  adobe  brick,  with 
walls  so  thick  that  they  can  scarcely  be 
warmed  through  bv  the  sun  of  summer. 
[24] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

Most  of  them  have  been  there  since 
Monterey  was  the  capital  of  Upper  Cah- 
fornia,  and  some  even  date  back  still 
farther  to  the  founding  of  the  Catholic 
Missions.  The  houses  are  Spanish  in 
type  and  some  are  of  very  elegant 
proportions,  with  low,  spacious,  shapely 
rooms.  ^^ 

When  Monterey  was  an  American 
capital  it  was  in  the  heyday  of  its  glory. 
Dana  has  preserved  for  us  a  picture  of 
that  time  in  "Two  Years  Before  the 
Mast."  From  one  cause  and  another  it 
declined  in  importance  to  being  only  the 
capital  of  a  county  and  finally,  by  the 
loss  of  its  charter  and  town  lands,  to 
a  mere  bankrupt  village.  The  history 
of  its  families  is  parallel  with  its  own. 
The  descendants  of  its  grandees  are  now 
poor  and  landless.  Yet  Monterey  still 
preserves  much  of  its  ancient  air  and  an- 
cient customs  which  make  a  happy  com- 
munity and  a  delightful  place  of  sojourn 
for  visitors. 

A  few  weeks  and  Stevenson  was 
[25] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

acquainted  with  every  past  and  present 
condition  of  the  town,  on  famihar  terms 
of  friendship  with  the  people,  and  as 
interested  in  their  welfare  as  an  old 
inhabitant.  It  was  not  in  the  sick-room 
nor  at  writing  that  he  spent  all  his  time. 
When  he  was  well  enough  he  was  much 
abroad,  visiting  every  nook  and  cranny 
of  the  old  Pacific  capital,  the  sandy 
beach  of  the  bay,  the  ocean  front  that  lay 
concealed  round  the  ultimate  point  of  the 
bay  shore,  and  the  inland  dunes  and 
forests. 

The  broad,  white  beach  extends  in  one 
sweeping  curve  for  miles  to  Santa  Cruz. 
Along  these  sands  was  a  walk  of  which 
Stevenson  never  tired.\/A  too  active 
mind,  insatiate  in  its  covings,  was  not 
the  least  burden  of  his  life.  He  gratefully 
seized  on  any  sight  or  incident  that  held 
his  attention  and  that  also  distracted  his 
thoughts  from  his  too  sad  broodings  and 
loneliness.  He  found  relief  in  watching 
the  wild  ducks,  the  sea-gulls  hovering 
over  the  bay,  the  sand-pipers  trotting  in 
[26] 


'Ai:<f^'-SiBii 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

and  out  by  troops  after  the  retiring 
waves,  and  there  was  the  strange  sea 
tangle  heaped  upon  the  beach  and  the 
novel  sight  of  bones  of  whales,  a  Best  of 
all  for  him  was  that  part  of  the  shore 
opposite  where  the  Hotel  del  Monte  now 
stands,  but  which  in  Stevenson's  day 
was  but  sand-hills  and  live-oaks  like 
the  waste  still  outside  its  beautiful 
grounds.  From  this  point  he  watched 
the  long  waves  forever  rolling  in  slowly 
toward  the  beach,  vast  and  green,  and 
curving  their  translucent  necks  until  they 
burst  with  a  surprising  uproar  and  flat- 
tened themselves  out,  with  white  foam 
borders,  high  up  the  sand;  but  to  be 
drawTi  back  with  hiss  and  rumble  into 
the  next  incoming  line  of  waves. 

Westward  from  Monterey  was  a  walk 
of  another  character.  Among  cliffs  and 
granite  boulders  the  breakers  spouted 
and  bellowed.  There  was  a  fishing  village 
of  Chinamen  in  a  cove,  farther  on  the 
Pacific  Camp  Grounds,  now  the  town  of 
Pacific  Grove,  set  in  a  forest  of  pines, 
[27] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

and  last  of  all  Point  Pinos  with  the 
lighthouse  in  a  wilderness  of  sand. 
Where  the  bay  met  the  Pacific  there  was 
an  unending  movement  of  the  waters. 
Let  the  sun  blaze  overhead,  and  the  air 
be  without  a  breath,  great  rollers  were 
forever  running  in  along  the  external 
shore.  On  no  other  coast  that  he  knew, 
Stevenson  said,  had  he  "  enjoyed  so 
much,  in  all  weathers,  such  a  spectacle 
of  ocean's  greatness,  such  beauty  of 
changing  color,  and  so  much  thunder  in 
the  sound  as  at  Monterey." 

For  a  change  of  walks  he  sometimes 
struck  inland  and  explored  the  sand-hills 
and  the  lagoons.  A  rough  undergrowth 
partially  concealed  the  sand.  Crouch- 
ing, hardy  live-oaks  flourished  singly 
or  in  thickets,  —  **the  kind  of  woods 
for  murderers  to  crawl  among."  Several 
years  later,  when  Stevenson  was  writing 
**  Treasure  Island,"  he  drew  on  Monterey 
scenery  for  his  description  of  the  island 
where  doubloons  of  Flint  and  his  pirate 
companions  were  buried.  It  was  in  just 
[281 


Ji«5cl^     ^•P^ 


FOREST    WALK,    MONTEREY 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

such  a  place  as  these  sand-hills  that 
Jim  Hawkins  found  himself  on  leaving 
his  mutinous  shipmates  whom  he  fol- 
lowed ashore.  It  was  in  just  such  a 
thicket  of  hve-oaks,  growing  low  along 
the  sand  like  brambles,  the  boughs  curi- 
ously twisted,  the  foliage  compact  like 
thatch,  that  he  crawled  and  squatted 
when  he  heard  the  voices  of  the  pirates 
near  him  and  raised  his  head  to  an 
aperture  among  the  leaves  to  see  Long 
John  Silver  strike  down  with  his  crutch 
one  of  his  mates  who  had  refused  to 
join   in  his   plan  of  murder. 

When  Stevenson  prolonged  his  tramps 
into  the  pine  woods  about  Monterey  he 
found  it  always  difficult  to  turn  home- 
ward. Their  emptiness  gave  him  a  sense 
of  freedom  and  discovery.  The  long 
lanes  paved  with  pine  needles  between 
the  towering  trunks  lured  him  onward. 
The  whole  woodland  was  filled  with  the 
thundering  surges  of  the  sea  which  begirt 
it.  "It  set  his  senses  on  edge;  he 
strained  his  attention;  he  w^alked  listen- 
[29] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

ing  like  an  Indian  hunter;  and  that  voice 
of  the  Pacific  was  a  sort  of  disquieting 
company  to  him  in  his  walk." 

On  the  cliflFs  of  the  coast,  blown  upon 
by  harsh  wind  from  the  sea,  there  grew 
the  pitch-pines  of  singular  shapes.  Still 
more  fantastic  trees  were  the  Monterey 
cypresses.  "Xo  words  can  give  an  idea 
of  the  contortions  of  their  growth;  they 
might  figure  without  change  in  a  circle 
of  the  nether  hell  as  Dante  pictured  it." 

One  day  Stevenson  inadvertently  set 
fire  to  the  forest.  A  conflagration  had 
been  raging  in  another  part  of  the  woods 
and  spread  so  rapidly  that  he  wondered 
if  it  were  the  moss,  that  quaint  funereal 
ornament  of  California  forests,  which  so 
rapidly  kindled.  To  test  it,  instead  of 
plucking  off  a  piece  of  moss  from  the 
tree,  he  touched  a  match  to  an  attached 
tassel.  In  a  moment  the  tree  was  a 
roaring  pillar  of  flames.  Not  far  off  he 
could  hear  the  shouts  of  men  who  were 
combating  the  original  fire.  He  knew 
that  there  was  onlv  one  thing  for  him  to 
[30] 


^ 

w 

fta^ 

^'^^^^'QI^BH  "t^^^H 

*  ^3 

•^ 

IN     CALIFORNIA 

do,  and  that  was  to  escape  before  he  was 
discovered,  and  he  ran  as  he  had  never 
run  in  his  Hfe  before. 

The  CaKfornia  that  was  before  the 
days  of  the  discovery  of  gold  and  the 
coming  of  people  from  the  Eastern 
States  is  best  exemplified  in  the  Indians 
of  Carmel.  Hither  came  the  Franciscan 
friars  and  established  one  of  their  most 
flourishing  missions  in  a  fertile  valley 
a  few  miles  from  Monterey.  A  great 
church  was  built  where  the  Indians 
gathered  for  Christian  services.  But  the 
mission  has  ceased  to  exist,  the  Indians 
are  decimated  and  scattered,  and  the  old 
church  a  ruin.  At  the  time  that  Steven- 
son visited  it,  it  was  roofless,  and  sea 
breezes,  and  sea-fog,  and  the  alternation 
of  rain  and  sunshine  bade  fair  to  widen 
the  breaches  in  the  walls  until  they 
should  be  levelled.  Fortunately  the 
church  has  not  been  allowed  to  become 
a  complete  ruin,  but  of  late  years  has 
been  restored. 

One  day  in  the  year  mass  is  still  cele- 
[31] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

brated  at  its  ancient  altar.     Stevenson 
was  present  at  one  of  these  annual  ser- 
vices.    The   padre   drove   over    the   hill 
from   Monterey.     Only    the   sacristy    at 
that  time  was  covered  and  it  was  filled 
with  seats  and  decorated  for  the  service. 
The  few  descendants  of  that  once  great 
band   of    Carmel    Indians,    their   bright 
dresses     contrasting     with     their     dark, 
melancholy    faces,    were   there    gathered 
together  with  a  crowd  of  unsympathetic 
holiday  makers    that   by   contrast   gave 
the  last  touch  of  pathos  to  the  event. 
An  old  white-haired  Indian,  stone-blind, 
conducted    the    singing.     Other    Indians 
composed    the    choir.     They    knew    per- 
fectly   the    Gregorian    music    and    pro- 
nounced the  Latin  correctly.     The  faces 
of  the  singers   lit    up    with    joy    as    the 
music  continued.     It  made  a  man's  heart 
sorry  for  the  good  fathers  of  yore  who 
had  taught  the  Indians  to  dig  and  to 
reap,  to  read  and  to  sing,  who  had  given 
them  European  mass-books  which  they 
still  preserve  and  study  in  their  cottages, 
[32] 


:   y.  : 

1 

i 

k 

Bft;  I^V 

WW 

M  ' 

t> 

(     ' 

E    'A 

ibiS 

IN     CALIFORNIA 

and  who  have  now  passed  away  from  all 
authority  and  influence  in  that  land  — 
to  be  succeeded  by  greedy  land  thieves, 
and  even  their  graves  hard  by  the  church 
to  be  desecrated  and  the  headstones  to 
serve  for  targets  for  sacrilegious  pistol 
shots. 

^  Nearly  four  months  Stevenson  re- 
mained in  Monterey.  The  first  month 
of  this  time  Mrs.  Osbourne,  with  her 
daughter  and  son  and  her  sister,  was 
occupying  a  picturesque  old  adobe  on 
the  main  street,  set  deep  in  a  garden 
having  the  famous  rose  tree  which  is 
pointed  out  to  all  visitors.  It  was  the 
home  of  Senorita  Bonifaccio,  admired  of 
General  Sherman  during  his  historic 
stay  m  the  old  Pacific  capital,  and 
their  romance  is  told  and  retold  to  this 
day.  Later,  Mrs.  Osbourne  and  her 
family  returned  to  their  home  in  East 
Oakland. 

While  the  Osbournes  were  in  Monterey 
the  marriage  of  Mrs.  Osbourne's  daughter 
[33] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

to   Joe    Strong,    a    painter,    had    taken 
place. 

It  was  of  Mr.  Strong,  when  later  at 
Silverado  he  joined  the  Squatters,  that 
Stevenson  said,  *'A  most  good-natured 
comrade  and  a  capital  hand  at  an  ome- 
lette. I  do  not  know  in  which  capacity 
he  was  most  valued  —  as  a  cook  or  a 
companion,  and  he  did  excellently  well 
in  both." 

A  few  days  before  Christmas,  1879, 
Stevenson  moved  to  San  Francisco. 

Looking  for  a  room  he  walked  up 
Bush  Street  till  he  came  to  No.  608, 
where  there  was  a  sign  in  the  window 
announcing  furnished  rooms  to  let.  It 
was  in  the  days  when  people  lived 
farther  down  town  than  they  do  at 
present.  The  house  was  an  old  one  and 
showed  its  dilapidation.  It  had  been  a 
two-story  cottage,  brought  round  the 
Horn.  This  part  had  been  raised  and  a 
new  story  inserted  underneath.  There 
were  French  windows  and  green  outside 
slat  blinds. 

[34] 


THE    C ARSONS       HOUSE 

No.     608    Bush    Street,    San    Francisco 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

What  interested  Stevenson  more  than 
all  else  was  that  the  house  faced  south, 
and  that  there  were  balconies  to  the 
windows,  running  the  width  of  the  front, 
on  all  three  floors.  Air  and  sunshine, 
the  two  great  desiderata  for  his  health's 
sake,  were  to  be  found  here.  His  ring 
brought  to  the  door  the  landlady  herself, 
Mrs.  Mary  Carson. 

If  Stevenson  eyed  her  with  question- 
ing glances,  no  less  suspiciously  did  she 
eye  this  new  applicant  for  a  room.  She 
had  just  gone  through  an  unhappy  experi- 
ence with  two  London  Germans,  who  had 
departed  leaving  several  months'  room 
rent  unpaid;  and  she  saw  at  once  that 
Stevenson  was  also  a  foreigner.  His 
manner  and  voice  proclaimed  it.  More 
than  that,  to  use  her  own  words,  *'He  ' 
was  such  a  strange-looking,  shabby  shack 
of  a  fellow.  Not  that  there  was  any- 
thing repellent  in  his  looks,  only  his  ap- 
pearance was  not  what  his  acquaintance 
bore.  For  when  I  came  to  know  him, 
I  just  loved  him  like  my  o^ti  child." 
[35] 


y 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 


His  garb  was  in  itself  a  disguise,  as  his 
clothing  generally  was.  The  secret  of  his 
dressing  poorly,  as  he  always  did,  was, 
first,  his  preoccupation  in  his  art,  and, 
second,  because  the  money  with  which  he 
might  have  bought  himself  better  clothes 
always  went  to  unfortunate  friends  whom 
he  thought  in  more  need  of  it.  Only 
the  necessary  and  useful  much  concerned 
him,  and  resulted  rather  nondescriptly 
occasionally.  In  Monterey  he  was  one 
chilly  morning  in  need  of  little  heavier 
clothing  than  he  had  on.  A  coat  was 
deemed  too  much;  a  jersey  would  have 
answered  the  purpose.  Lacking  it  he 
pulled  an  extra  undershirt  on  over  the 
outside.  Mrs.  Carson  describes  his  dress 
the  day  he  came  to  her  house  seeking 
lodgings  thus:  "He  wore  a  httle  brown 
rough  ulster  buttoned  up  tight  under  his 
chin,  and  Scotch  brogues,  the  walking 
kind,  laced  up  high,  and  his  pants  stuck 
in  the  tops,  and  a  dicer  hat."  / 

He  was  tall  and  thin  naturally,  and 
emaciated  by  illness.     His  hair  was  hght 
[36] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

brown  and  down  on  his  neck;  his  com- 
plexion olive  but  rich-tinted,  for  he  never 
lost  his  color  even  in  sickness;  and  his 
lips  were  full  and  red.  His  manners 
and  gestures  were  like  those  of  Latin 
people. 

Stevenson  looked  at  the  room  to  be 
rented.  It  was  the  southwest  corner 
one  on  the  second  floor.  It  and  a  hall 
bedroom  occupied  the  whole  front.  The 
larger  room  contained  a  bed,  a  table,  a 
dresser,  and  two  chairs;  and  there  w^as 
an  open  fireplace.  **Here  is  all  there  is 
of  it,"  honestly  exclaimed  Mrs.  Carson, 
on  throwing  the  door  open.  Stevenson 
liked  a  bare  room  to  work  in.  He  re- 
marked on  the  fireplace  and  the  price 
and  went  away.  Not  long  afterward  he 
returned,  closed  a  bargain  with  Mrs. 
Carson  for  the  room,  and  with  two  grips 
moved  in  the  same  day. 

This  house  and  one  at  No.  7  Mont- 
gomery Avenue,  where,  after  his  marriage, 
he  and  his  wife  went  for  a  few  days  before 
moving  to  Mount  Saint  Helena,  and  the 
[37] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

old  Occidental  Hotel,  where  Stevenson 
stayed  on  his  return  eight  years  later  to 
ship  from  this  port  for  the  South  Seas, 
were  the  only  houses  Stevenson  ever 
lived  in  in  San  Francisco. 

A  certain  house  in  San  Francisco,  called 
Stevenson's,  was  not  his;  in  fact  was 
not  built  until  many  years  after  his 
being  there  and  even  some  time  after 
his  death.  More  than  that,  he  never 
visited  even  the  site  on  which  that 
house    stands. 

Seekers  after  literary  landmarks  will 
find  nothing  remaining  in  San  Francisco 
connected  with  Stevenson,  other  than 
locahties.  The  old  house  at  Xo.  608 
Bush  Street  was  torn  down  long  before 
the  great  fire.  When  Stevenson  returned 
the  second  time,  and  he  and  his  mother 
climbed  the  Bush  Street  hill  in  search  of 
Mrs.  Carson,  they  found  the  old  house 
gone  and  a  new  one  erected  in  its  place. 
The  Montgomery  Avenue  house  and  the 
Occidental  Hotel  and  the  restaurants  in 
which  he  ate  are  all  gone;  all  were 
[38] 


MRS.     MARY     C  A  R  S  O  X ,     WITH     STEVENSON      S 
STEP-GRANDCHILDREN 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

swept    away    in    the     conflagration    of 
1906. 

Of  all  the  landmarks  in  San  Francisco 
Portsmouth  Square  is  the  one  most 
nearly  connected  with  Stevenson.  It  is 
in  the  midst  of  the  part  of  the  city 
Stevenson  found  most  interesting  and 
which  he  portrayed  in  "The  Wrecker," 
and  it  was  here  he  often  came  to  sit 
on  the  benches  and  watch  the  strange 
humanity  that  drifted  thither.  And  it  is 
in  Portsmouth  Square  where  his  monu- 
ment is,  which  Mr.  Bruce  Porter  and 
some  other  citizens  of  San  Francisco  set 
up  to  his  memory,  the  first  to  be  erected 
anywhere. 

Mrs.  Carson  still  retains  a  most  vivid 
remembrance  of  her  lodger;  of  his  happy 
presence  in  the  house  —  although  he  was 
inwardly  in  sore  distress,  for  he  spoke 
years  afterward  of  that  time  as  being 
the  saddest  hours  of  his  life. 
/He  spent  most  of  his  time  in  his  room, 
generally  writing.  But  he  liked  well  to 
have  his  landlord  or  landlady  come  in  to 
[39  1 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

have  a  talk  with  him.  He  was  ready 
always  to  draw  them  out  in  conversation, 
and  listened  attentively,  regarding  them 
closely  with  his  keen  dark  eyes  all  the 
while.  In  his  hours  of  despondency  Mrs. 
Carson's  gay  Irish  ways  and  wit  buoyed 
his  spirits,  and  his  heart  responded  to  her 
many  kindnesses:  the  fire  she  lit  for  him 
in  his  grate,  the  motherly  little  visits 
she  paid  him  in  his  room  when  he  was 
ill,  the  hot  foot-baths,  her  tucking  the 
blankets  and  the  counterpane  about  him 
when,  as  was  his  usual  way  while  writ- 
ing, he  lay  in  bed,  his  head  bolstered 
up  with  pillows,  and  his  knees  drawn  up 
for  a  book-rest.  A 

His  sympathies  always  drew  the  deep- 
est life  stories  from  his  friends,  and  it 
was  not  unnatural  that  when  Mrs.  Carson 
received  a  letter  from  an  old  flame  of 
youthful  days,  it  was  carried  to  Steven- 
son. His  refusal  to  her  request  that  he 
write  an  answer  (being  an  author  and 
competent  to  compose  it  better  than 
she)  was  made  w^ith  the  explanation 
[40  1 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

that  he  was  sure  the  writer  would  a 
hundredfold  rather  have  one  written  by 
herself  than  the  most  eloquently  worded 
epistle  by  another. 

Mrs.  Carson,  speaking  of  Stevenson's 
ready  indignation,  says  he  was  "that 
quick"  but  equally  ready  to  apologize. 
His  concern  regarding  the  ruling  passion 
of  the  Carsons,  to  gamble  away  on  min- 
ing stocks  all  their  savings,  was  like  his 
desire  always  to  help  all  those  he  met 
exactly  in  the  way  they  needed  it  most. 
Stevenson  said  to  Mrs.  Carson  on  their 
memorable  last  meeting,  "I  hope  you  do 
not  waste  your  money  on  the  stocks." 
"Stars,  no,  no!"  replied  Mrs.  Carson. 
"No,  I  never  buy  mining  stocks  any  more. 
I  cannot,  I  have  no  more  money.  The 
stocks  has  got  it  all."  Such  were  his 
sympathy  and  distress  and  his  labor  in 
helping  with  the  nursing  when  the  Car- 
son baby  fell  dangerously  ill  that  it 
brought  a  new  fit  of  illness  on  himself. 
To  the  Carsons  with  his  usual  frankness 
he  told  much  of  his  own  experiences,  and 
[41] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

took  them  into  his  confidence  about  his 
approaching  marriage. 

When  Stevenson  returned  to  San  Fran- 
cisco, of  the  family  of  four  (Mrs.  and  Mr. 
Carson  and  their  two  httle  sons),  only 
Mrs.  Carson  and  Robbie,  the  one  who 
had  been  the  sick  baby,  were  left.  Not 
finding  her  at  the  old  house,  where  he  had 
gone  at  first  to  see  her,  and  lacking 
strength  to  hunt  farther,  he  sent  her  a 
letter  to  come  to  the  Occidental  Hotel. 
On  the  evening  appointed,  word  was  left 
in  the  office  that  she  alone  was  to  be 
shown  up  to  Stevenson's  room.  When 
she  entered,  Stevenson  from  his  bed  held 
out  his  arms  to  her  and  drew  her  to  him 
and  kissed  her  "for  auld  lang  syne." 

Not  long  since,  in  telling  some  one  of 
Stevenson's  life  at  her  house,  Mrs.  Carson 
,  concluded:  *'I  remember  one  morning 
papa's  coming  home,  and  he  had  a  news- 
paper in  his  hand,  and  he  said,  'Well, 
your  author's  dead.'  I  had  a  picture  of 
him  he  had  sent  me,  enlarged  and  hung 
in  the  parlor;  but  I  couldn't  think  of 
[42] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

anything  when  the  big  fire  came,  and 
somehow  I  left  that  and  the  silk  sock  of 
the  author's  he  threw  away  in  my  house 
and  that  I  had  always  kept  my  money 
in  when  I  had  some,  and  all  the  things 
I  had  cut  out  of  the  papers  about  him 
when  he  got  famous,  and  they  all  burned. 
And  do  you  know,  there  is  something 
nke  in  all  artists?" 

'Y  Stevenson's  w^onderful  gift  for  friend- 
ship brought  out  the  ready  response  we 
have  seen  in  Simoneau  and  Mrs.  Carson 
and  other  true  hearts  and  warm  and 
kindly  natures  like  his  own.  But  for 
any  act  of  kindness  or  a  favor  received 
he  repaid,  when  possible,  a  hundredfold. 
He  was  most  generous  with  his  money, 
and  could  never  say  no  to  a  beggar. 
Importunate  friends  were  helped  to  the 
extent  of  every  cent  he  possessed.  After 
he  became  famous  and  made  with  his 
writing  twenty  to  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars  a  year,  little  was  spent  on  him- 
self, but  all  went,  just  as  his  monthly 
allowance  from  his  father  had  gone,  to 
[43] 


ROBERT    LOUIS     STEVENSON 

his  friends  who  happened  to  want  it.  \ 
With  human  nature  what  it  is,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  there  were  those  who 
benefited  by  Stevenson's  generosity  when 
they  stood  in  less  need  than  he  himself. 
And  it  is  a  sad  fact  that  one  in  very 
easy  circumstances,  in  England,  owed 
Stevenson  the  most  part  of  a  consider- 
able sum  of  money  his  father  gave  him 
on  coming  of  age,  while  he  w^as  sick  and 
almost  penniless  thousands  of  miles  from 
home.  Stevenson  was  not  the  man  to 
ask  for  it.  But  this  was  one  of  the  fea- 
tures of  his  life  that  sadly  made  him 
liken  himself  to  Cervantes'  hero,  and  yet 
also  brought  out  one  of  his  famous  prov- 
erbs: "Greatheart  was  deceived.  *Very 
well,'  said  Greatheart."  This  was  really 
the  summing  up  of  his  own  life  experi- 
ences and  disillusions. 

The  famous  letter  in  "Across  the 
Plains,"  "not  written,"  as  Stevenson 
said,  "by  Homer  but  by  a  boy  of  eleven," 
to  "My  Dear  Sister  Mary,"  and  describ- 
ing his  and  his  brother's  attempt,  before 
[44] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

the  days  of  railroads,  by  ox  team  to  go 
from  Missouri  to  California,  he  got  in 
San  Francisco.  Two  of  the  boys  reached 
"the  good  country,"  but  one  was  slain 
by  Indians  on  the  plains.  This  letter 
was  written  by  Martin  Mahoney  to  his 
sister,  afterward  Mrs.  Carson.  It  deeply 
interested  Stevenson,  who  had  so  lately 
come  the  same  journey  but  in  the  more 
comfortable  way  of  travel,  by  train,  and 
yet  the  hardships  of  which  journey  had 
been  almost  more  than  his  strength. 
When  Mrs.  Carson  one  day  gave  Steven- 
son the  letter,  then  twenty  years  old,  to 
read,  he  took  it  to  his  room.  Several 
days  afterward  he  returned  the  letter  to 
her  but  without  comment.  He  was  at 
the  time  writing  "Across  the  Plains," 
in  her  humble  upstairs  front  bedroom. 
After  Stevenson  had  returned  to  Europe, 
one  day  the  mail  brought  Mrs.  Carson 
a  copy  of  the  completed  volume  and 
she  beheld  her  precious  letter,  and  the 
memory  of  her  little  brother  who  had 
escaped  death  at  the  hands  of  wild 
[45] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

Indians  on  the  plains,  only  to  find  an 
unknown  and  unmarked  grave  in  the 
new  country,  there  immortalized.  Mar- 
tin Mahoney's  body  lies  in  the  potter's 
field  of  Laurel  Hill  Cemetery  on  Lone 
Mountain,  but  his  memory  is  as  wide  as 
the  English-speaking  world. 

While  he  hved  in  San  Francisco,  ill 
health  and  consequent  hindrance  in  his 
writing  brought  Stevenson's  purse  to  a 
low  ebb.  He  could  afford  to  go  for  his 
meals  only  to  cheap  restaurants.  He  got 
a  ten-cent  breakfast  at  a  coffee-house  on 
Sixth  Street  south  of  Market;  for  his 
dinner,  which  he  took  in  the  middle  of 
the  day,  he  went  to  Donadieu's  restau- 
rant on  Bush  Street,  between  Dupont 
and  Kearney;  and  for  his  supper  he 
returned  to  the  Sixth  Street  coffee-house. 
Needing  later  to  reduce  still  further  his 
expenses,  he  permitted  himself  but  two 
meals,  to  bring  his  daily  expenses  to  a 
♦  forty -five-cent  limit,  and  to  the  complete 
destruction  of  his  health. 

It  was  when  Mrs.  Carson  observed  that 
[46] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

he  did  not  go  out  to  a  meal,  that  a  tray 
from  her  own  kitchen  was  carried  by  her- 
self to  his  room,  with  almost  an  apology: 
she  wished  him  to  taste  her  good  soda 
biscuits,  her  coffee,  or  a  chop.  And  when 
his  room  rent  fell  due  and  there  was  delay 
in  payment,  it  never  troubled  her  good 
heart.  Stevenson  spoke  only  too  truly 
when  he  called  her  '*the  rose  that  had 
blossomed  and  bloomed  under  the  bush." 

If  to  him  his  writing  seemed  to  lag,  the 
Hst  does  not  appear  a  short  one  for  three 
months'  work.  Much  that  was  begun  in 
Monterey  was  polished  off  and  brought 
to  a  conclusion.  Some  useless  work  was 
put  on  "The  Vendetta"  before  the  whole 
was  entirely  abandoned.  *' Across  the 
Plains"  was  mostly  written  at  Mrs. 
Carson's.  "The  Amateur  Emigrant" 
was  finished  and  posted  from  there. 

Of  this  time  of  Stevenson's  Hfe  we  have 
his  own  description  in  the  letters  with 
which  we  are  familiar,  in  the  "Letters  to 
His  Family  and  Friends."  Only  that 
to  Professor  Meiklejohn  of  St.  Andrew's 
[47] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

University  in  Scotland  was  not  included. 
In  spite  of  what  is  said  in  his  letter  to 
Professor  Meiklejohn  about  seeking  relief 
in  works  of  adventure,  there  was  a  book 
of  an  entirely  different  kind  that  Steven- 
son kept  constantly  with  him,  carrying 
it  about  in  his  pocket  in  San  Francisco 
street-cars  and  ferry-boats  when  he  was 
full  of  unhappiness  and  anxieties  and 
sick  unto  death,  finding  it  at  all  times 
and  places  a  peaceful  and  sweet  compan- 
ion. It  was  Penn's  "Fruits  of  Solitude," 
printed  in  Philadelphia. 

The  next  winter,  after  he  had  returned 
to  Europe  and  was  at  Davos,  a  health 
resort  in  Switzerland,  he  passed  the 
volume  on  to  Horatio  F.  Brown,  not 
without  some  regret  at  parting  with  it. 

Professor  Meiklejohn  had  just  read  his 
Burns  and  being  greatly  pleased  with  it 
wrote  to  tell  Stevenson  so.  His  cheering 
words  were  a  god-send  to  Stevenson,  not 
solely  for  its  own  sake,  and  because  it 
confirmed  his  own  estimate  of  his  essay: 
'*  Burns,  I  beUeve,  in  my  own  mind,  is 
[48  1 


1 


^ 


> 


ROBERT     L  (J  U  I  S     S  T  E  ^"  E  N  S  O  N 

A    Picture   Never   Before   Published 


IX     CALIFORNIA 

one  of  my  high  water  marks,"  but  it 
came  at  a  time  when  he  was  sorely  in 
need  of  encouragement  and  a  pleasant 
word.  His  other  literary  friends  had 
seen  fit  to  fill  their  letters  with  criticisms 
and  warnings  which  were  the  last  things 
poor  Stevenson  wanted  while  sick  and 
anxious  and  on  the  verge  of/  collapse. 
In  his  reply  Stevenson  wrote  ^\' When  I 
suffer  in  mind,  stories  are  my  refuge; 
I  take  them  hke  opium,  and  I  consider 
one  who  writes  them  as  a  sort  of  doctor 
of  the  mind;  and  frankly,  Meiklejohn, 
it  is  not  Shakespeare  we  take  to  when 
we  are  in  a  hot  corner;  nor,  certainly, 
George  Eliot,  —  no,  not  even  Balzac. 
It  is  Charles  Reade,  or  old  Dumas,  or 
the  'Arabian  Xights,'  or  the  best  of 
Walter  Scott:  it  is  stories  we  want,  not 
the  high  poetic  function  which  repre- 
sents the  world;  we  are  then  like  the 
Asiatic  with  his  imjprovisatore,  or  the 
Middle  Ages  with  the  trouvereS  We  want 
incident,  interest,  action;  to  the  devil 
with  your  philosophy.  So  I,  when  I 
[  49  ] 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON 

am  ready  to  go  beside  myself,  stick 
my  head  into  a  book,  as  the  ostrich 
with  her  bush:  let  fate  and  fortune 
meantime  belabor  my  posteriors  as  they 
will."  \ 

The  Secret  of  much  of  Stevenson's 
misery  while  he  was  living  at  Mrs. 
Carson's  Stevenson  reveals  farther  on 
in  his  letter  to  Professor  Meiklcjohn: 
*' When  I  may  return  is  a  great  mystery. 
I  am  going  to  be  married  first,  at  least; 
but  I  suppose  you  had  better  not  talk 
of  it  too  much  just  yet,  for  my  parents 
are  very  much  opposed.  This  will  give 
you  a  clue  to  some  of  my  troubles." 


[50] 


A  P  P  U  ( •  A  (    H     TO     S  A  N     V  H  A  N  <    I  S  (    O 


THE     NARROWS,     SAX     FRANCISCO 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

The  following  is  a  description  by 
Stevenson  of  the  city  of  San  Francisco, 
contributed  to  the  London  Magazine  of 
Art,  and  written  at  Davos,  February  18, 

1882: 

SAN   FRANCISCO 
A  MODERN  COSMOPOLIS 

"The  Pacific  coast  of  the  United 
States,  as  you  may  see  by  the  map,  and 
still  better  in  that  admirable  book,  'Two 
Years  Before  the  Mast,'  by  Dana,  is  one 
of  the  most  exposed  and  shelterless  on 
earth.  The  trade- wind  blows  fresh;  the 
huge  Pacific  swell  booms  along  degree 
after  degree  of  an  unbroken  line  of  coast. 
South  of  the  joint  firth  of  the  Columbia 
and  Willamette,  there  flows  in  no  con- 
siderable river;  south  of  Puget  Sound 
there  is  no  protected  inlet  of  the  ocean. 
Along  the  whole  seaboard  of  California 
there  are  but  two  unexceptionable  anchor- 
ages, the  bight  of  the  Bay  of  INIonterey, 
and  the  inland  sea  that  takes  its  name 
from  San  Francisco. 

[oil 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

*'Ayiietlier  or  not  it  was  here  that  Drake 
put  in,  ill  1597,  we  cannot  telL  There 
is  no  other  phice  so  suitable;  and  yet  the 
narrative  of  Francis  Pretty  scarcely  seems 
to  suit  the  features  of  the  scene.  Viewed 
from  seaward,  the  Golden  Gate  should 
give  no  very  English  impression  to  justify 
the  name  of  a  New  Albion.  On  the  west, 
the  deep  lies  open;  nothing  near  but  the 
still  vexed  Farallones.  The  coast  is 
rough  and  barren.  Tamalpais,  a  moun- 
tain of  a  memorable  figure,  springing 
direct  from  the  sea-level,  over-plumbs  the 
narrow  entrance  from  the  north.  On  the 
south,  the  loud  music  of  the  Pacific 
sounds  along  beaches  and  cliffs,  and 
among  broken  reefs,  the  sporting  place 
of  the  sea-lion.  Dismal,  shifting  sand- 
hills, wrinkled  by  the  wind,  appear  be- 
hind. Perhaps,  too,  in  the  days  of 
Drake,  Tamalpais  would  be  clothed  to 
its  peak  with  the  majestic  redwoods. 

"Within  the  memory  of  persons  not 
yet  old,  a  mariner  might  have  steered 
into  these  narrows  (not  yet  the  Golden 
[5i] 


I  X     C  A  L  I  F  O  K  S  I  A 

Gate),  opened  out  the  surfaee  of  the 
bay,  —  here  girt  with  hills,  there  lying 
broad  to  the  horizon,  —  and  beheld  a 
scene  as  empty  of  tlie  presence,  as  pure 
from  the  handiworks  of  man,  as  in  the 
days  of  our  old  sea  commander.  A 
Spanish  mission,  fort,  and  church  took 
the  place  of  those  'houses  of  the  people 
of  the  country'  which  were  seen  by 
Pretty,  'close  to  the  water-side.'  All 
else  would  be  unchanged.  Now,  a  gen- 
eration later,  a  great  city  covers  the  sand- 
hills on  the  west,  a  growing  town  lies 
along  the  muddy  shallows  of  the  east; 
steamboats  pant  continually  between 
them  from  before  sunrise  till  the  small 
hours  of  the  morning;  lines  of  great  sea- 
going ships  he  ranged  at  anchor;  colors 
fly  upon  the  islands;  and  from  all  around, 
the  hum  of  corporate  life,  of  beaten  bells, 
and  steam,  and  running  carriages,  goes 
cheerily  abroad  in  the  sunshine.  Choose 
a  place  on  one  of  the  huge  throbbing 
ferry-boats,  and,  when  you  are  midway 
between  the  citv  and  the  suburb,   look 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

around.  The  air  is  fresh  and  salt,  as  if 
you  were  at  sea.  On  the  one  hand  is  Oak- 
land, gleaming  white  among  its  gardens. 
On  the  other,  to  seaward,  hill  after  hill  is 
crow^ded  and  crowned  with  the  palaces 
of  San  Francisco;  its  long  streets  he  in 
regular  bars  of  darkness,  east  and  west, 
across  the  sparkling  picture;  a  forest  of 
masts  bristles  like  bulrushes  about  its 
feet.  Nothing  remains  of  the  days  of 
Drake  but  the  faithful  trade-wind  scatter- 
ing the  smoke,  the  fogs  that  will  begin 
to  muster  about  sundown,  and  the  fine 
bulk  of  Tamalpais  looking  down  on  San 
Francisco,  like  Arthur's  Seat  on  Edin- 
burgh. 

"Thus  in  the  course  of  a  generation 
only,  this  city  and  its  suburbs  have 
arisen.  Men  are  alive  by  the  score  who 
have  hunted  all  over  the  foundations  in  a 
dreary  waste.  I  have  dined,  near  the 
'punctual  centre'  of  San  Francisco,  with 
a  gentleman  (then  newly  married)  who 
told  me  of  his  former  pleasures,  wading 
with  his  fowling-piece  in  sand  and  scrub, 
[54] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

on  the  site  of  the  house  where  we  were 
dining.  In  this  busy,  moving  genera- 
tion, we  have  all  known  cities  to  cover 
our  boyish  playgrounds,  we  have  all 
started  for  a  country  walk  and  stumbled 
on  a  new  suburb;  but  I  wonder  what 
enchantment  of  the  '  Arabian  Nights '  can 
have  equalled  this  evocation  of  a  roaring 
city,  in  a  few  years  of  a  man's  hfe,  from 
the  marshes  and  the  blowing  sand.  Such 
swiftness  of  increase,  as  with  an  over- 
grown youth,  suggests  a  corresponding 
swiftness  of  destruction.  The  sandy 
peninsula  of  San  Francisco,  mirroring 
itself  on  one  side  in  the  bay,  beaten  on 
the  other  by  the  surge  of  the  Pacific,  and 
shaken  to  the  heart  by  frequent  earth- 
quakes, seems  in  itself  no  very  durable 
foundation.  According  to  Indian  tales, 
perhaps  older  than  the  name  of  CaU- 
fornia,  it  once  rose  out  of  the  sea  in  a 
moment,  and  some  time  or  other  shall, 
in  a  moment,  sink  again.  No  Indian, 
they  say,  cares  to  linger  on  that  dreadful 
land.  *The  earth  hath  bubbles  as  the 
[55] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

water  has,  and  this  is  of  them.'  Here, 
indeed,  all  is  new,  nature  as  well  as  towns. 
The  very  hills  of  California  have  an  un- 
finished look;  the  rains  and  the  streams 
have  not  yet  carved  them  to  their  perfect 
shape.  The  forests  spring  Uke  mush- 
rooms from  the  unexhausted  soil;  and 
they  are  mown  down  yearly  by  forest 
fires.  We  are  in  early  geological  epochs, 
changeful  and  insecure;  and  we  feel,  as 
with  a  sculptor's  model,  that  the  author 
may  yet  grow  weary  of,  and  shatter,  the 
rough  sketch. 

*' Fancy  apart,  San  Francisco  is  a  city 
beleaguered  with  alarms.  The  lower 
parts,  along  the  bay  side,  sit  on  piles; 
old  wrecks  decaying,  fish  dwelling  un- 
sunned, beneath  the  populous  houses; 
and  a  trifling  subsidence  might  drown 
the  business  quarters  in  an  hour.  Earth- 
quakes are  not  uncommon,  they  are 
sometimes  threatening  in  their  violence; 
the  fear  of  them  grows  yearly  on  a  resi- 
dent; he  begins  with  indifference,  ends 
in  sheer  panic;  and  no  one  feels  safe  in 
[56] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

any    but    a    wooden    house.     Hence    it 
comes  that,   in  that  rainless  cHme,  the 
whole  city  is  built  of  timber  —  a  wood- 
yard  of  unusual  extent  and  compHcation; 
that  fires  spring  up  readily,  and,  served 
by   the   unwearying   trade-w4nd,   swiftly 
spread;    that  all  over  the  city  there  are 
fire-signal  boxes;   that  the  sound  of  the 
bell,  telling  the  number  of  the  threatened 
ward,  is  soon  famihar  to  the  ear;    and 
that  nowhere  else  in  the  world  is  the  art 
of  the  fireman  carried  to  so  nice  a  point. 
"Next,  perhaps,  in  order  of  strange- 
ness to  the  speed  of  its  appearance,  is  the 
mingling  of  the  races  that  combine  to 
people  it.     The  town  is  essentially  not 
Anglo-Saxon;    still  more  essentially  not 
American.     The   Yankee   and   the   Eng- 
Hshman  find  themselves  alike  in  a  strange 
country.     There     are     none     of     those 
touches  —  not    of    nature,    and    I    dare 
scarcely  say  of  art  —  by  which  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  feels  himself  at  home  in  so  great 
a  diversity  of  lands.     Here,  on  the  con- 
trarv,  are  airs  of  Marseilles  and  of  Pekin. 
[57] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

The  shops  along  the  street  are  hke  the 
consulates  of  different  nations.  The 
passers-by  vary  in  feature  like  the  slides 
of  a  magic  lantern.  For  we  are  here  in 
,  that  city  of  gold  to  which  adventurers 
congregated  out  of  all  the  winds  of 
heaven;  we  are  in  a  land  that  till  the 
other  day  was  ruled  and  peopled  by  the 
countrs^men  of  Cortes;  and  the  sea  that 
laves  the  piers  of  San  Francisco  is  the 
ocean  of  the  East  and  of  the  isles  of 
summer.  There  goes  the  Mexican,  un- 
mistakable; there  the  blue-clad  China- 
man with  his  white  slippers;  there  the 
soft-spoken,  brown  Kanaka,  or  perhaps 
a  waif  from  far-away  Malaya.  You 
hear  French,  German,  Italian,  Spanish, 
and  English  indifferently.  You  taste  the 
food  of  all  nations  in  the  various  restau- 
rants; passing  from  a  French  prix-fixe, 
where  every  one  is  French,  to  a  roaring 
German  ordinary,  where  every  one  is 
German;  ending,  perhaps,  in  a  cool  and 
silent  Chinese  tea-house.  For  every  man, 
for  everv  race  and  nation,  that  city 
[58] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

is  a  foreign  city,  humming  with  foreign 
tongues  and  customs;  and  yet  each  and 
all  have  made  themselves  at  home.  The 
Germans  have  a  German  theatre  and 
innumerable  beer  gardens.  The  French 
Fall  of  the  Bastile  is  celebrated  with 
squibs  and  banners  and  marching  pa- 
triots, as  noisily  as  the  American  Fourth 
of  July.  The  Italians  have  their  dear 
domestic  quarter,  with  Itahan  carica- 
tures in  the  windows,  Chianti  and  polenta 
in  the  taverns.  The  Chinese  are  settled 
as  in  China.  The  goods  they  offer  for 
sale  are  as  foreign  as  the  lettering  on  the 
sign  board  of  the  shop:  dried  fish  from 
the  China  seas;  pale  cakes  and  sweet- 
meats, the  hke,  perhaps,  once  eaten 
by  Badroulboudour;  nuts  of  unfriendly 
shape;  ambiguous,  outlandish  vegetables 
—  misshapen,  lean,  or  bulbous  —  telling 
of  a  country  where  the  trees  are  not  as 
our  trees,  and  the  very  back  garden  is  a 
cabinet  of  curiosities.  The  joss  house  is 
hard  by,  hea^y  with  incense,  packed 
with  quaint  carvings  and  the  parapher- 
[59] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

nalia  of  a  foreign  ceremonial.  All  these 
you  behold,  crowded  together  in  the 
narrower  arteries  of  the  city,  cool,  sunless, 
a  little  mouldy,  with  the  high,  musical 
sing-song  of  that  alien  language  in  your 
ears.  Yet  the  houses  are  of  Occidental 
build;  the  lines  of  a  hundred  telegraphs 
pass,  thick  as  a  ship's  rigging,  overhead, 
a  kite  hanging  among  them,  perhaps,  or 
perhaps  two  —  one  European,  one 
Chinese  in  shape  and  color.  Mercantile 
Jack,  the  Italian  fisher,  the  Dutch  mer- 
chant, the  Mexican  vaquero,  go  hustling 
by.  At  the  sunny  end  of  the  street,  a 
thoroughfare  roars  with  European  traffic; 
and  meanwhile,  high  and  clear,  outbreaks, 
perhaps,  the  San  Francisco  fire  alarm, 
and  people  pause  to  count  the  strokes 
and  in  the  stations  of  the  double  fire  ser- 
vice you  know  that  the  electric  bells  are 
ringing,  the  traps  opening  and  clapping 
to,  and  the  engine,  manned  and  harnessed, 
being  whisked  into  the  street,  before  the 
sound  of  the  alarm  has  ceased  to  vibrate 
on  your  ear.  Of  all  romantic  places  for 
[60] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

a  boy  to  loiter  in,  that  Chinese  quarter 
is  the  most  romantic.  There,  on  a  half- 
holiday,  three  doors  from  home,  he  may 
visit  an  actual  foreign  land,  foreign  in 
people,  language,  things,  and  customs. 
The  very  barber  of  the  '  Arabian  Nights ' 
shall  be  at  work  before  him,  shaving 
heads;  he  shall  see  Aladdin  playing  on 
the  streets;  who  knows,  but  among  those 
nameless  vegetables,  the  fruit  of  the  rose 
tree  itself  may  be  exposed  for  sale?  And 
the  interest  is  heightened  with  a  chill  of 
horror.  Below,  you  hear,  the  cellars  are 
alive  with  mystery;  opium  dens,  where 
the  smokers  lie  above  one  another,  shelf 
above  shelf,  close-packed  and  grovelling 
in  deadly  stupor;  the  seats  of  unknown 
vices  and  cruelties,  the  prisons  of  un- 
acknowledged slaves,  and  the  secret  laza- 
rettoes  of  disease. 

"With  all  this  mass  of  nationaHties, 
crime  is  common.  Amid  such  a  competi- 
tion of  respectabilities,  the  moral  sense 
is  confused ;  in  this  camp  of  gold-seekers, 
speech  is  loud  and  the  hand  is  ready. 
[61] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

There  are  rough  quarters  where  it  is 
dangerous  o'  nights;  cellars  of  pubhc 
entertainment  which  the  wary  pleasure- 
seeker  chooses  to  avoid.  Concealed 
weapons  are  unlawful,  but  the  law  is 
continually  broken.  One  editor  was  shot 
dead  while  I  was  there;  another  walked 
the  streets  accompanied  by  a  bravo,  his 
guardian  angel.  I  have  been  quietly 
eating  a  dish  of  oysters  in  a  restaurant, 
w^here,  not  more  than  ten  minutes  after 
I  had  left,  shots  were  exchanged  and  took 
effect;  and  one  night,  about  ten  o'clock, 
I  saw  a  man*  standing  watchfully  at  a 
street  corner  with  a  long  Smith-and- 
Wesson  glittering  in  his  hand  behind  his 
back.  Somebody  had  done  something 
he  should  not,  and  was  being  looked  for 
with  a  vengeance.  It  is  odd,  too,  that 
the  seat  of  the  last  vigilance  committee  I 
know  of  —  a  mediaeval  Fehmgericht  — 
was  none  other  than  the  Palace  Hotel, 
the  world's  greatest  caravanserai,  served 
by  lifts  and  lit  with  electricity;  where, 
in  the  great  glazed  court,  a  band  nightly 
[62] 


^^pDk. 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

discourses  music  from  a  grove  of  palms. 
So  do  extremes  meet  in  this  city  of  con- 
trasts:  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty, 
apathy  and  excitement,  the  conveniences 
of   civiUzation,    and   the   red   justice   of 
Judge  Lynch.     The  streets  lie   straight 
up    and    down    the    hills    and    straight 
across    at    right    angles,    these    in    the 
sun,  those  in   the  shadow,  a  trenchant 
pattern  of  gloom  and   glare;   and  what 
with  the  crisp  illumination,  the  sea  air 
singing  in  your  ears,  the  chill  and  glit- 
ter, the  changing  aspects  both  of  things 
and  people,  the  fresh  sights  at  every  cor- 
ner of  your  walk  —  sights  of  the  bay,  of 
Tamalpais,  of  steep,  descending  streets, 
of  the  outspread  city  —  whiffs  of  alien 
speech,    sailors    singing    on     shipboard, 
Chinese    coolies    toihng    on    the    shore, 
crowds   brawling   all   day   in   the    street 
before  the  Stock  Exchange  —  one  brief 
impression  follows  another,  and  the  city 
leaves  upon  the  mind    no    general   and 
stable  picture,  but  a  profusion  of   airy 
and  incongruous  images,  of  the  sea  and 
[63  1 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

shore,  the  East  and  West,  the  summer 
^d  the  winter. 

y^  "In  the  better  parts  of  this  most  in- 
teresting city  there  is  apt  to  be  a  touch 
of  the  commonplace.  It  is  in  the  slums 
and  suburbs  that  the  city  dilettante  finds 
his  game,  and  there  is  nothing  more 
characteristic  and  original  than  the 
outlying  quarters  of  San  Francisco.  The 
Chinese  district  is  the  most  famous;  but 
it  is  far  from  the  only  truffle  in  the  pie. 
There  is  many  another  dingy  corner, 
many  a  young  antiquity,  many  a  terrain 
vague  with  that  stamp  of  quaintness  that 
a  city-lover  seeks  and  dwells  on;  and  the 
indefinite  prolongation  of  its  streets,  up 
hill  and  do^^Tl  vale,  makes  San  Francisco 
a  place  apart. ^  The  same  street  in  its 
career  visits  and  unites  so  many  different 
classes  of  society,  here  echoing  with  drays, 
there  lying  decorously  silent  between  the 
mansions  of  bonanza  millionaires,  to 
founder  at  last  among  the  drifting  sands 
beside  Lone  Mountain  cemetery,  or  die 
out  among  the  sheds  and  lumber  of  the 
[64] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

north.  Thus  you  may  be  struck  with  a 
spot,  set  it  down  for  the  most  romantic 
in  the  city,  and,  glancing  at  the  name 
plate,  find  it  is  on  the  same  street  that 
you  yourself  inhabit  in  another  quarter 
of  the  town. 

*'The  great  net  of  straight  thorough- 
fares lying  at  right  angles,  east  and  west 
and  north  and  south,  over  the  shoulders 
of  Xob  Hill,  the  hill  of  palaces,  must  cer- 
tainly be  counted  the  best  part  of  San 
Francisco.  It  is  there  that  the  milhon- 
aires  are  gathered  together,  vying  with 
each  other  in  display ;  looking  dowTi  upon 
the  business  wards  of  the  city.  That  is 
California  Street.  Far  away  down  you 
may  pick  out  a  building  with  a  little 
belfry;  and  that  is  the  Stock  Exchange, 
the  heart  of  San  Francisco :  a  great  pump 
we  might  call  it,  continually  pumping 
up  the  savings  of  the  lower  quarters  into 
the  pockets  of  the  millionaires  upon  the 
hill.  But  these  same  thoroughfares  that 
enjoy  for  a  while  so  elegant  a  destiny 
have  their  hues  prolonged  into  more 
[65  1 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

unpleasant  places.  Some  meet  their  fate 
in  the  sands;  some  must  take  a  cruise 
in  the  ill-famed  China  quarters;  some 
run  into  the  sea;  some  perish  unwept 
among  pig  sties  and  rubbish  heaps. 

"Nob  Hill  comes,  of  right,  in  the  place 
of  honor;  but  the  two  other  hills  of  San 
Francisco  are  more  entertaining  to  ex- 
plore. On  both  there  are  a  world  of  old 
wooden  houses  snoozing  away  all  for- 
gotten. Some  are  of  the  quaintest  de- 
sign, others  only  romantic  by  neglect 
and  age;  some  are  curiously  painted; 
and  I  have  seen  one  at  least  with  ancient 
carvings  panelled  in  its  wall.  Surely  they 
are  not  of  CaHfornia  building,  but  far 
voyagers  from  round  the  stormy  Horn, 
hke  those  who  sent  for  them  and  dwelt 
in  them  at  first.  Brought  to  be  the 
favorites  of  the  wealthy,  they  have  sunk 
into  these  poor,  forgotten  districts,  where, 
like  old  town  toasts,  they  keep  each 
other  silent  countenance. '  Telegraph 
Hill  and  Rincon  Hill,  these  are  the  dozing 
quarters  that  I  recommend  to  the  city 
[66] 


T  A  M  A  L  P  A  I  S 


ANOTHER    VIEW    OF    T  A  M  A  L  P  A  I  3 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

dilettante.     There  stand  these  forgotten 
houses,  enjoying  the  unbroken  sun  and 
quiet.     There,    if    there    were    such    an 
author,  would  the  San  Francisco  Fortune 
de  Boisgobey  pitch  the  first  chapter  of 
his  mystery.     But  the  first  is  the  quainter 
of   the   two.     Visited    under   the   broad 
natural  daylight,  and  with  the  relief  and 
accent   of   reality,   these   scenes   have   a 
quality  of   dream-land  and  of   the   best 
pages  of  Dickens.     Telegraph  Hill,  be- 
sides, commands  a  noble  view;   and  as  it 
stands  at  the  turn  of  the  Bay,  its  skirts 
are  all  water-side,  and  round  from  North 
Reach  to  the  Bay  Front  you  can  follow 
doubtful  paths  from  one  quaint  corner  to 
another.     Everywhere  the  same  tumble- 
down decay   and   sloppy  progress,   new 
things  yet  unmade,  old  things  tottering 
to  their  fall;    everywhere  the  same  out- 
at-elbows,    many-nationed    loungers    at 
dim,    irregular    grog-shops;     everywhere 
the  same  sea-air  and  isleted  sea  prospect; 
and  for  a  last  and  more  romantic  note, 
you  have  on  the  one  hand  Tamalpais 
[67] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

standing  high  in  the  blue  air,  and  on  the 
other  the  tail  of  that  long  alignment  of 
three-masted,  full-rigged,  deep-sea  ships 
that  make  a  forest  of  spars  along  the 
eastern  front  of  San  Francisco.  In  no 
other  port  is  such  a  navy  congregated. 
For  the  coast  trade  is  so  trifling,  and  the 
ocean  trade  from  round  the  Horn  so 
large,  that  the  smaller  ships  are  swal- 
lowed up  and  can  do  nothing  to  confuse 
the  majestic  order  of  these  merchant 
princes.  In  an  age  when  the  ship  of  the 
line  is  already  a  thing  of  the  past,  and 
we  can  never  hope  to  go  coasting  in  a 
cockboat  between  the  *  wooden  walls'  of 
a  squadron  at  anchor,  there  is  perhaps 
no  place  on  earth  where  the  power  and 
beauty  of  sea  architecture  can  be  so  per- 
fectly enjoyed  as  in  this  bay." 

Stevenson  met  not  a  great  many  people 
in  San  Francisco,  but  some  of  the  dearest 
friendships  of  his  life  were  formed  here. 
First  must  come  the  ^Tilhamses:  Virgil 
^Mlliams,  the  painter  and  the  founder  of 
[68] 


.     IN     CALIFORNIA 

the  California  School  of  Art,  and  its 
director  for  thirteen  years  —  until  his 
death;  and  his  wife,  Dora  Norton  Wil- 
liams. These  two  had  long  been  friends 
of  the  Osbournes,  and  Mrs.  Osbourne 
and  her  children  had  been  pupils  in 
drawing  in  the  Art  School,  before  their 
going  to  Europe,  where  they  met  Steven- 
son. Mr.  and  Mrs.  Williams,  when 
Stevenson  came  to  San  Francisco,  were 
living  in  the  old  Supreme  Court  building 
on  Montgomery  Street,  at  that  time 
transformed  into  studios  and  living-rooms 
for  artists. 

Mrs.  WilHams  was  ill  and  alone  one 
afternoon,  when  Mrs.  Osbourne  brought 
Stevenson  with  her  to  pay  a  visit.  At 
first  Stevenson  made  not  much  of  an 
impression.  Mrs.  Williams  observed 
that  he  was  tall  and  thin  and  in  disarray, 
and  had  fine  eyes  and  carried  his  figure 
well.  He  was  silent  and  left  most  of  the 
conversation  to  the  ladies.  Next  day 
Stevenson  came  again  to  get  what  he 
called  his  gum  coat,  which  he  had  for- 
[69] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

gotten  when  he  went  away  the  day  before. 
The  two  got  into  a  pleasant  animated 
discussion  and  he  remained  some  time. 
Stevenson  shone  best  always  in  talk; 
and  those  who  knew  him  declare  that  his 
written  works,  wonderful  as  they  are,  are 
not  the  equal  of  his  conversation,  when 
*'all  the  many  lights  and  colors  of  his 
richly  compounded  spirit  could  be  seen 
in  full  play."  He  had  a  peculiarly  beau- 
tiful voice,  with  a  rich,  round,  but  not 
provincial,  Scotch  accent.  While  he  con- 
versed with  Mrs.  WiUiams,  he  paced  up 
and  down  the  floor  in  his  usual  fashion, 
with  rapid  and  graceful  motion,  or  hung 
on  the  mantel-piece.  It  was  not  strange 
that  the  conversation  turned  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  relations  of  America  and  Great 
Britain. 

Stevenson  regretted  that  England  had 
lost  the  Colonies.  He  pictured  the  States 
under  British  rule,  with  America  the  seat 
of  government  of  the  whole  empire.  He 
dwelt  upon  the  benefits  that  would  have 
accrued  to  the  whole  English-speaking 
[70  1 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

race  from  such  a  union,  and  to  all  man- 
kind, with  Great  Britain  and  America 
ruling  the  world  for  peace  and  righteous- 
ness. In  a  flight  of  fancy,  and  w^ith  all 
the  richness  of  language  that  was  his,  he 
pictured  the  actual  transporting  of  the 
royal  family  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of 
government  across  the  Atlantic,  the 
pageantry  of  the  ships  and  the  gorgeous 
landing,  and  the  setting  up  of  the  throne 
at  Washington. 

While  Stevenson  was  talking,  ]Mr. 
Williams  came  in.  He  looked  doubtfully 
from  Mrs.  Williams  to  the  stranger;  for, 
as  he  told  his  wife  afterwards,  he  thought 
a  tramp  had  got  in  and  she  could  not  get 
him  out  again.  But  it  was  only  for  a 
moment,  and  soon  the  two  men  were 
talking  with  all  the  interest  and  pleasure 
of  those  who  feel  much  in  common,  and 
from  that  day  began  a  friendship  between 
the  two  that  never  ended  until  the  death 
of  Virgil  Williams. 

Mrs.  Williams  recalls  a  very  character- 
istic incident  in  Stevenson's  stay  in  San 
[  71  ] , 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

Francisco.  A  jaunt  to  the  Golden  Gate 
Park  had  been  planned  by  the  Willi amses 
and  Stevenson,  but  when  the  day  arrived 
it  was  bleak  and  damp,  a  day  of  fog  and 
wind.  The  Williamses  would  have  been 
glad  to  forego  the  little  excursion;  but 
Stevenson  appeared  to  wish  it,  and  with 
not  much  anticipation  of  pleasure  they 
joined  Stevenson. 

At  once  his  spirits  seemed  to  rise. 
He  was  talkative,  sportive,  gay.  The 
weather  was  forgotten,  both  the  cold  and 
the  wet;  a  holiday  spirit  was  kindled  in 
all  their  veins  by  Stevenson.  They  spent 
the  afternoon  walking  along  the  paths 
and  through  the  trees  and  bushes,  and 
returned  at  evening  for  a  dinner  at  a 
down-toT\Ti  restaurant.  And  so  pleasant 
did  the  time  seem  that  it  remained  a  red- 
letter  day  in  Mrs.  Williams's  memory; 
and  yet  all  the  gayety  was  made  by 
Stevenson,  and  at  the  very  time  when  his 
heart  was  heavy. 

During  the  time  that  Stevenson  Uved 
in  Mrs.  Carson's  room,  the  WilHamses 
[72] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

moved  to  Taylor  Street,  near  Gear^\  It 
is  this  house  that  Stevenson  refers  to  in 
his  letter  to  Virgil  Williams  from  Bourne- 
mouth, given  farthe    on. 

Virgil  ^Tilliams  introduced  Stevenson 
at  the  Bohemian  Club,  then  occupying 
rooms  over  the  old  California  Market,  at 
I  No.  430  Pine  Street,  and  on  the  same 
floor  with  the  Art  School.  Here  Steven- 
son was  afterward  wont  to  go  to  sit  and 
read  or  talk  with  some  of  the  members. 
But  he  is  remembered  most  at  the 
Club  as  a  reserved,  melancholy-looking 
figure  poring  over  a  book.  There  were 
three  other  members  of  the  Club  besides 
WilHams  for  whom  Stevenson  conceived 
a  warm  regard.  These  were  Judge 
Rearden  and  Judge  John  Boalt,  of  the 
latter  of  whom  Stevenson  said  that  he 
was  the  finest  type  of  iimerican  gen- 
tleman that  he  had  met,  and  Charles 
Warren  Stoddard,  professor  and  author, 
who  was  most  instrumental  in  inducing 
Stevenson,  a  number  of  years  later,  to 
embark  for  the  South  Seas. 
[73] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

Much  as  Stevenson  admired  Judge 
Boalt,  there  seems  never  to  have  been 
any  correspondence  between  them  by 
letter  after  Stevenson  left  San  Francisco. 
But  Stevenson  and  Stoddard  continued 
their  intimacv  bv  writincr  and  exchange 
of  books  and  by  occasional  meetings. 

In  "The  ATrecker,"  the  chapter  on 
"Faces  on  the  City  Front"  is  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  place  on  Telegraph  Hill  where 
Stevenson  first  visited  Stoddard,  and 
from  which  he  went  home  armed  with 
Stoddard's  own  "South  Sea  Idylls"  and 
a  volume  of  Herman  Melville's  "Typee." 

The  break-down  Stevenson  experienced 
after  four  months  in  San  Francisco, 
brought  on  by  helping  to  nurse  the  Car- 
son baby,  was  very  serious.  Dr.  '\\'illey 
of  San  Francisco  was  his  physician. 
In  the  dedication  of  "Underwood"  to 
his  doctors  in  many  parts  of  the  world, 
of  Dr.  \\'illey,  Stevenson  said,  "His  kind- 
ness to  a  stranger,  it  must  be  as  grateful 
to  him  as  it  is  touching  to  me  to  remem- 
ber." 

[74] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

Mrs.  Osbourne  had  Stevenson  moved 
to  her  cottage  in  East  Oakland,  where 
the  chmate    was    better    for    his    weak 
lungs,  and  where  he  could  have  the  care 
he  needed.     Dr.  Bamford  was  called  in  to 
attend  him.     For  six  weeks  it  was  a  toss- 
up  for  life  or  death.     He  seemed  on  the 
verge  of  a  galloping  consumption,  he  had 
cold    sweats,    fever,    prostrating   attacks 
of  cough,  sinking  fits  in  which  he  lost  the 
power  of  speech,  but  after  a  few  weeks 
he    on^e    more    began    picking    up.     He 
said\"I  have  come  out  of  all  this,  and 
got  my  feet  once  more  on  a  Httle  hill-top, 
with  a  fair  prospect  of  life  and  some  new 
desire  of  hving.     Yet  I  did  not  wish  to 
die,   neither;    only   I   felt   unable   to   go 
on  farther  with  that  rough  horse-play  of 
human  life:    a  man  must  be  pretty  well 
to  take  the  business  in  good  part.     Yet  I 
felt  all  the  time  I  had  done  nothing  to 
entitle   me   to    an    honorable    discharge; 
that  I  had  taken  up  many  obKgations 
and  begun  many  friendships  which  I  had 
no  right  to  put  away  from  me;   and  that 
[75] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

for  me  to  die  was  to  play  the  cur  and 
slinking  Sybarite,  and  desert  the  colors 
on  the  eve  of  the  decisive  fight.'/ 

The   following    lines,    written   at    this 
same  time,   express   the   same   thought: 

Not  yet,  my  soul,  these  friendly  fields  desert. 

Freedom  is  far,  rest  far.     Thou  art  with  life 
Too  closely  looven,  nerve  and  nerve  entwined; 
Service  still  craving  service,  love  for  love! 
A  bond  at  birth  is  forged  ;  a  debt  doth  lie 
Immortal  on  mortality. 

Leave  not,  my  soul,  the  unfoughten  field,  nor 

leave 
Thy  debts  dishonored,  nor  thy  place  desert 
Without  due  service  rendered. 
Up,  spirit,  and  defend  that  fort  of  clay. 
Thy  body,  now  beleaguered ;  whether  soon 
Or  late  she  fall ;  ichether  to-day  thy  friends 
Bewail  thee  dead,  or,  after  years,  a  man 
Groum  old  in  honor  and  the  friend  of  peace. 
Contend,  my  soul,  for  moments   and  for 

hours  ; 
Each   is   icith   service  pregnant;   each  re- 
claimed 
Is  as  a  kingdom  conquered,  where  to  reign, 
[76] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

No  sooner  did  Stevenson's  parents 
learn  of  his  illness  than  money  was  tele- 
graphed him,  and  the  news  that  he  was 
to  count  on  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds, 
or  twelve  hundred  dollars  odd,  a  year. 

About  the  same  time  Mrs.  Osbourne 
obtained  a  divorce  from  her  husband, 
but  without  provision  for  her  or  her 
minor  child's  support.  Stevenson  was  on 
the  mend,  but  the  doctors  gave  him  no 
hope  of  complete  recovery,  nor  even 
many  months  to  live.  An  early  marriage 
of  himself  and  Mrs.  Osbourne  was  the 
best  thing  for   both. 

A  wife  could  give  him  the  care  he  very 
much  needed;  and  when  he  died,  there 
would  be  the  pension  of  a  Scottish 
advocate  for  his  widow;  and  he  believed 
that  his  father,  who  was  a  man  of  very- 
comfortable  fortune,  would  also  make 
some  provision  for  her  out  of  an  inherit- 
ance that  would  have  naturally  come  to 
him,  his  only  child.  But  he  was  too 
unselfish  a  man  to  have  taken  a  wife  for 
the  sake  of  the  care  she  could  give 
[77] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

him;  and  he  said  afterward,  when  month 
after  month,  and  even  for  years,  he 
experienced  only  the  weary  prison  of  the 
sick-room,  had  he  known  that  he  would 
live  to  be  an  invalid  he  never  would  have 
married. 

The  marriage  took  place  quietly  in  San 
Francisco,  May  19,  1880,  in  a  manner 
simple  and  suitable.  Mr.  Stevenson  and 
his  wife  to  be  went  to  the  Taylor  Street 
residence  of  Mrs.  Virgil  WiUiams,  and 
she  walked  with  them  to  the  house  of  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Scott,  the  Presbyterian  minis- 
ter, on  Sutter  Street,  near  his  church  on 
Union  Square.  Presbyterian  was  the 
denomination  of  his  father's  and  his 
mother's  families,  and  if  he  held  broader 
religious  views  himself,  it  w^as  the  church 
in  which  he  had  been  brought  up. 
Stevenson  had  been  to  the  minister's  be- 
fore and  made  the  arrangements;  and 
Dr.  Scott  pronounced  the  ceremony  with 
only  Mrs.  Williams  as  witness.. 

When  Stevenson  was  about  to  dedicate 
"The  Silverado  Squatters,"  he  wrote: 
[78] 


W  O  O  n  S  ,  NEAR  ST.  HELENA 


WOODS,  ON  THE  WAY  TO  SILVERADO 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

"There  remain  C.  S.  and  the  Williamses; 
you  know  they  were  the  parties  who  stuck 
up  for  us  about  the  marriage;  and  Mrs. 
WiUiams  was  my  guardian  angel,  and 
our  best  man  and  bridesmaid  rolled  into 
one,  and  the  only  third  of  the  wedding 

/arty." 
Another  time  Stevenson,  referring  to 
his  marriage,  said:  "It  was  not  my  bliss 
that  I  was  interested  in  when  I  was 
married,  it  was  a  sort  of  marriage  in 
extremis;  and  if  I  am  where  I  am,  it  is 
thanks  to  the  care  of  that  lady  who 
married  me  when  I  was  a  mere  complica- 
tion of  cough  and  bones,  much  fitter  to 
be  an  emblem  of  mortality  than  a  bride- 
groom."   y 

As  a  wedding  present  the  minister  gave 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stevenson  a  volume  of  his 
own  authorship  on  some  theological  sub- 
ject; and  Stevenson  sent  him  afterward 
a  volume  (of  which  he  remarked  with 
a  certain  amused  satisfaction,  "that  it 
matched  in  bulk  as  well  as  theme")  by 
his  father,  Thomas  Stevenson,  on  some 
[79  1 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

mooted  questions  about  some  passages 
in  the  Bible. 

After  their  wedding  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Stevenson  remained  a  few  days  in  fur- 
nished rooms  at  No.  7  Montgomery 
Avenue,  and  then  went  to  Cahstoga  in 
Napa  Valley.  They  had  in  mind  to  get 
a  small  place  away  from  sea  fogs,  where 
Stevenson  could  be  out-of-doors  all  day. 
"It  is  the  change  I  want,"  he  wrote, 
"and  the  blessed  sun,  and  a  gentle  air  in 
which  I  can  sit  out  and  see  the  trees  and 
running  water." 

The  Williamses  had  a  ranch  on  the 
slopes  of  ]Mount  Saint  Helena.  This 
influenced  their  choice  of  location;  and 
it  was  a  place  easy  and  inexpensive  to 
reach  from  San  Francisco.     ^ 

The  journey  to  Calistoga,  the  search 
for  a  house,  and  all  the  days  following  in 
the  miner's  cabin  at  the  old  deserted 
mine  of  Silverado  are  all  described  with  a 
master's  touch  in  "Silverado  Squatters." 
Copious  notes  for  the  book  were  made  on 
the  spot,  but  the  book  itself  was  not  writ- 
[80  1 


IIIMMI! 


■  i? 


ki.w3a3nkw.ji 


^\■  I  L  L  I  A  M  S   RANCH,  ST.  HELENA 


TOLL  HOUSE,  SILVERADO 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

»  ten  until  after  his  return  to  Europe.  He 
worked  on  it  from  time  to  time,  as  he 
wandered  from  one  health  resort  to 
another  in  Switzerland  and  the  High- 
lands of  Scotland,  and  finally  finished  it 
at  Hyeres  in  the  south  of  France. 

The  following  is  an  inscription  Steven- 
son wrote  on  the  fly-leaf  of  the  copy  he 
sent  to  Virgil  and  Dora  Norton  Williams, 
to  whom  it  is  dedicated : 

Here  from  the  forelands  of  the  tidcless  sea, 
Behold  and  take  my  offering,  unadorned. 
Or,  shall  ice  say,  defaced  by  Joseph's  art. 
In  the  Pacific  air  it  sprang;  it  grew 
Among  the  silence  of  the  Alpine  air; 
In  Scottish  heather  blossomed,  and  at  last 
By  that  unshaken  sapphire,  in  whose  face 
Spain,  Italy,  France,  Algiers,  and  Tunis 

view 
Their  introverted  mountains,  came  to  fruit. 
Back  now,  my  Booklet,  on  the  diving  ship. 
And  posting  on  the  rails,  to  home  return. 
Home,    and   the  friends    whose    honoring 

name  you  bear. 

R.  L.  S. 

[81] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

To  reach  Mount  Saint  Helena  from 
San  Francisco,  Stevenson  and  his  wife 
went  by  way  of  Oakland  and  Vallejo 
Junction.  The  first  night  on  the  way 
was  passed  in  South  Vallejo  at  the 
Frisby  House,  a  hotel  of  decayed  for- 
tunes set  in  dismal  surroundings,  be- 
tween narrows  of  an  arm  of  the  Bay  of 
San  Francisco  and  some  marshy  pools. 
Next  day  the  journey  was  resumed. 

For  some  way  beyond  Vallejo  the  rail- 
way ran  through  bald  green  pastures 
extending  to  low,  distant  hills.  But  by 
and  by  the  hills  began  to  draw  nearer 
on  either  hand  and  their  sides  to  be 
clothed  with  woods.  A  great  variety 
of  oaks  stood  sometimes  severally,  again 
in  groves,  among  fields  and  vineyards. 
There  were  towns  of  bright  wooden 
houses  overshadowed  by  great  forest 
trees.  This  was  the  green  and  pleasant 
Napa  Valley.  The  north  end  was  block- 
aded by  Mount  Saint  Helena,  the  place 
sought  by  Stevenson.  At  its  foot,  where 
the  railroad  ceased,  was  the  town  of 
[82] 


THE     WAY     TO     SILVERADO 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

;1Calistoga.  Those  who  intended  going 
farther,  to  the  geysers  or  to  the  springs 
in  Lake  County,  had  to  cross  the  moun- 
tain by  stage.  The  floor  of  the  valley 
was  level  to  the  very  roots  of  the  hills 
and  in  the  narrowed  end  was  the  pleas- 
ant and  forested  town  of  Cahstoga. 
There  was  a  single  street  topping  the 
highway  that  came  up  the  valley  and  the 
railroad  about  parallel  to  it.  The  clear, 
bright,  low  houses  were  between  the  rail- 
way station  and  the  road?  Alone,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  railway,  stood  the 
Springs  Hotel,  surrounded  by  a  system 
of  httle  five-roomed  cottages,  each  with 
a  veranda  and  a  weedy  palm  before  the 
door.  Since  Stevenson's  day  it  has  been 
destroyed  by  fire  and  risen  again  from 
its  ashes.  It  was  one  of  these  little 
country  cottages,  dependencies  of  the 
hotel,  that  Stevenson  and  his  wife  occu- 
pied for  a  time  while  Stevenson  rested 
and  regained  his  strength.  It  was  a 
pleasant  place  to  dwell  in;  often  visited 
by  fresh  airs,  now  from  Blount  Saint 
[83  1 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

Helena,  now  across  Sonoma  from  the 
sea.  It  was  very  quiet,  very  idle,  and 
silent  but  for  the  breezes  in  the  trees  and 
the  cattle  bells  in  the  fields. 

The  whole  neighborhood  of  Mount 
Saint  Helena  is  full  of  sulphur  and  boiling 
springs.  At  one  end  of  the  hotel  en- 
closure there  bubbled  up,  from  some  sub- 
terranean lake,  water  hot  enough  to 
scald. 

X  *' There  was  something  satisfactory  in 
the  sight  of  the  great  mountain  enclosing 
us  on  the  north,"  wrote  Stevenson, 
"whether  it  stood  robed  in  sunshine, 
quaking  to  its  topmost  pinnacle  with  the 
heat  and  brightness  of  the  day,  or  whether 
it  set  itself  to  wearing  vapors,  wisp  after 
wisp,  growing,  trembling,  fleeting,  and 
fading  in  the  blue."  It  overtowered 
everything  else,  and  dwarfed  the  tangled, 
woody,  foothills.  In  no  part  of  the 
valley  is  it  ever  out  of  sight.  Its  profile 
is  bold,  the  great  bald  summit,  clear  of 
trees  and  pasture,  was  a  cairn  of  quartz 
and  cinnabar,  n/ 

■^   [84] 


<      - 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

Sometimes  it  was  seen  framed  in  a 
grove  of  oaks.  Sometimes  in  a  picture 
of  blue  hilly  distance  this  bulk  of  moun- 
tain rose,  bare  atop,  with  tree-fringed 
spurs,  the  most  conspicuous  figure. 

The  woods  about  Calistoga  were  species 
of  trees  new  to  Stevenson,  the  madrona, 
the  manzanita,  the  wild  nutmeg,  and  the 
bay,  and  here  for  the  first  time  he  w^alked 
amid  redwoods.  Here  also  he  noted  the 
imminent  destruction  of  all  these  most 
magnificent  of  forests,  saw  the  circles  of 
young  trees  that  spring  around  the  ruins 
of  the  old  and  larger  trees,  for  Calistoga 
has  not  escaped  the  woodman  and  the 
lumberman.  *' Redwoods  and  redskins,  > 
the  two  noblest  indigenous  living  things, 
alike  condemned." 

All  the  slopes  of  ^Nlount  Saint  Helena, 
now  so  quiet  and  sylvan,  were  once  alive 
with  mining  camps  and  villages.  But 
luck  failed  and  mines  petered  out.  The 
army  of  miners  had  departed  and  left 
deserted  towns  and  empty  houses  be- 
hind them.  Stevenson  had  heard  of 
[85] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

one  such  place,  Pine  Flat,  on  the  Geysers 
road,  where  he  might  get  a  ready-made 
house  rent  free  in  a  climate  where  he 
hoped  to  regain  his  health.  But  a  roof 
overhead  and  a  spring  of  water  at  the 
door  does  not  solve  the  squatter's  whole 
problem.  Food  had  yet  to  be  con- 
sidered, and  the  necessity  of  living  on 
canned  meats  and  milk,  on  being  de- 
pendent on  the  stage  drivers  to  bring 
supplies,  made  Pine  Flat  impossible.  The 
store-keeper  of  Calistoga,  a  Russian  Jew, 
whom  Stevenson  named  Kelmar  in 
"Silverado  Squatters,"  was  consulted. 
Kelmar  shook  his  head  at  the  mention 
of  Pine  Flat.  Later,  one  fine  morning, 
he  announced  to  Stevenson  that  he  had 
found  the  verj^  place  for  him,  —  Silver- 
ado, another  old  mining  town  right  up 
the  mountain.  That  his  help  in  settling 
the  Stevensons  at  Silverado  was  not 
wholly  disinterested  they  found  later 
when  they  came  to  know  how  all  the 
people  of  the  region  were  vassals  of  the 
Jew  store-keeper,  made  so  by  credit  he 
[86] 


l\l  >,' 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

offered  till  they  were  beyond  their  depth. 
In  this  instance  every  penny  expended 
at  Silverado  found  its  way  into  Kelmar's 
till  at  last. 

Kelmar  himself,  accompanied  by  his 
wife  and  a  friend  and  her  little  daughter, 
drove  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stevenson  one 
Sunday  morning  to  Silverado.  The  road 
ran  for  two  miles  through  the  valley, 
skirting  the  eastern  foothills;  then  it 
struck  off  to  the  right  through  high  land 
and  presently,  crossing  a  dry  water- 
course, entered  the  Toll  road,  or,  as  it 
was  called,  ''the  grade."  This  mounted 
a  shoulder  of  Mount  Saint  Helena.  In 
one  place  it  skirted  the  edge  of  a  narrow 
deep  canon,  filled  with  trees.  Vineyards 
and  meadows  gave  way  to  woods  of  oak 
and  madrona,  dotted  with  pines,  as  it 
ascended. 

The  road  crossed  the  summit  of  the 
ridge  and  plunged  down  a  deep,  thickly 
wooded  glen  on  the  farther  side.  At  the 
highest  point  in  the  road  a  trail  struck 
up  the  main  hill  to  the  leftward  which 
[87  1 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

led  to  Silverado.  A  hundred  yards  be- 
yond, in  a  kind  of  elbow  of  the  glen, 
stood  the  Toll  House  Hotel. 

The  house  was  gray  and  of  two  stories, 
with  gable  ends  and  a  veranda.  There 
were  also  stables  and  a  w^ater-tank.  All 
were  jammed  hard  against  the  hillside, 
just  where  a  stream  had  cut  for  itself  a 
narrow  canon,  filled  with  pines.  The 
pines  went  right  up  overhead  and  the 
stream  could  easily  have  been  made  to 
play  on  the  roof  like  a  fire-hose.  In 
front  of  the  hotel  the  ground  dropped  as 
sharply  as  it  rose  behind.  There  was 
just  room  for  the  road  and  a  small  flat 
used  for  a  croquet  ground.  The  toll-bar 
itself  was  a  long  beam,  turning  on  a  post 
and  upheld  by  the  counterweight  of 
stones.  At  sunset  this  barrier  was  swung 
across  the  road  and  made  fast  to  a  tree. 

Arrived  at  the  Toll  House  the  town  of 
Silverado  was  sought  on  foot.  A  hill 
had  to  be  climbed  and  woods  stumbled 
through  before  the  Stevensons,  follow^ed 
by  the  Kelmars,  came  out  upon  the 
[88] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

sought-for  site  of  the  old  mining  town. 
But  here  was  a  disappointment.  A  single 
house  bearing  the  sign,  "Silverado  Hotel," 
was  remaining.  All  the  other  houses 
had  been  moved  away;  one  of  them  was 
being  used  as  a  school -house  far  down 
the  road.  There  was  not  another  sign 
of  habitation  besides  the  "Silverado 
Hotel,"  and  it  was  already  occupied  by 
one  Rufe  Hanson  and  his  family.  But 
it  was  the  Hansons  that  made  known  the 
existence  of  some  cabins  at  the  tunnel 
of  the  mines. 

About  a  furlong  from  Silverado,  at  the 
end  of  a  road  that  ran  along  the  hillside 
through  the  forest,  was  the  mine.  A 
canon,  wooded  below,  red,  rocky,  and 
naked  overhead,  was  walled  across  by  a 
dump  of  rolling  stones,  steep  and  about 
thirty  feet  high.  A  rusty  iron  chute  on 
wooden  props  extended  beyond  the  top. 

It  was  down  this  the  ore  from  the  mine 

was  wont  to  be  poured  into  carts  which 

stood  waiting  below  ready  to  carry  it  to 

the  mill  down  the  mountain.     To  mount 

[89] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

the  dump,  two  lengths  of  wooden  ladder, 
fixed  in  the  hillside,  had  to  be  ascended. 
Beyond  the  dump  over  loose  rubble  a 
triangular  earth  platform  was  reached, 
filling  up  the  whole  glen  and  shut  in  on 
either  hand  by  the  bold  projections  of 
the  mountains.  "Only  in  front  was  the 
place  open  like  the  proscenium  of  a 
theatre,  and  it  looked  forth  into  a  great 
realm  of  air  and  down  upon  tree  tops  and 
hilltops,  and  far  and  near  on  wild  and 
varied  country."  The  place  remamed  as 
it  had  been  deserted:  a  line  of  iron  rails, 
a  truck,  lumber,  old  wood,  old  iron, 
a  blacksmith's  forge  on  one  side  half 
buried  in  madronas,  and  on  the  other 
an  old  brown  wooden  house  of  three 
rooms.  Farther  behind  in  the  overgrown 
canon  there  was  a  great  crazy  staging  in 
front  of  an  open  shaft  leading  edgewise 
into  the  mountain.  Close  by,  another 
shaft  led  edgewise  up  into  the  superin- 
cumbent shoulder  of  the  hill.  It  lay 
partly  open  and,  high  above,  the  strata 
were  propped  apart  by  solid  w^ooden 
[90] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

wedges.  There  was  also  a  horizontal 
tunnel  running  back,  straight  into  the 
mountain.  The  view  on  farther  up  the 
canon  was  a  glimpse  of  devastation,  — 
crags,  dry  red  minerals,  and  here  and 
there  a  dwarf  thicket,  very  unlike  the 
green  downward  view  toward  the  valley. 
The  house  was  but  the  cabin  for  miners. 
The  three  rooms  were  on  three  different 
elevations  as  they  could  find  room  and 
resting-place  at  the  side  of  the  narrow 
canon.  It  was  in  a  state  of  utter  dilapi- 
dation without  a  window-sash  in  place 
and  all  but  one  door  gone.  The  foliage 
of  the  bay  overgrew  the  windows,  and 
poison  oak  and  other  bushes  had  begun 
to  sprout  through  the  broken  planks  of 
the  floor.  The  first  room  had  been  the 
assayer's  office.  The  second  room,  en- 
tered from  a  different  side  and  on  a 
different  level  and  by  a  plank  propped 
against  the  threshold,  had  been  the  bed- 
room of  the  miners.  A  triple  tier  of  beds 
lined  two  opposite  sides.  The  third  room 
was  higher  up  the  hill  and  farther  up  the 
[91] 


ROBERT    LOUIS     STEVENSON 

canon.  It  contained  only  rubbish  and 
the  uprights  for  another  triple  tier  of 
beds.  The  whole  building  was  overhung 
by  a  great  projecting  rock,  and  over- 
grown with  tall  bushes. 

There  seemed  no  other  choice  and  who 
of  a  romantic  and  gypsy  turn  of  mind 
would  ask  for  anything  else?  The  de- 
serted mine  and  miners'  cabin  was  chosen. 

That  night  the  Stevensons  stopped  at 
the  Toll  House  and  next  day  w^ere  picked 
up  by  the  Kelmars  on  their  homeward 
way  from  their  extended  trip  into  Lake 
County.  They  returned  to  Calistoga  to 
prepare  for  the  flitting. 

A  few  days  later  all  things  were  ready 
for  the  squatting  at  Silverado.  Steven- 
son could  always  make  of  his  surround- 
ings a  story,  could  always  see  himself  in 
a  romantic  situation.  It  w^as  thus  that 
he  got  through  with  spirit  more  than  one 
weary  stage,  saved  himself  the  tedium 
of  more  than  one  dreary  hour.  This 
time  the  play  was  that  of  the  "king  and 
queen."  They  rode  in  a  double  buggy 
[92  1 


.^^ 


IX     CALIFORNIA 

toward  the  new  possessions,  and  the 
*' crown  prince"  —  Mrs.  Stevenson's 
twelve-year-old  son  —  was  on  horseback 
like  an  outrider.  The  baggage  was  left 
for  the  Hanson  team  which  was  to  fol- 
low. Half-way  up  the  hill,  beside  the 
road,  they  came  to  a  silent  and  ruined 
mill  where  once  the  ore  from  the  mine 
had  been  carted,  and,  carrying  out  the 
play,  they  held  it  as  being  a  part  of  the 
Silverado  mining  property,  to  be  an  out- 
lying province  of  their  own. 

It  was  late  afternoon  when  the  royal 
squatters  took  possession  of  their  newly 
acquired  dominion.  There  was  a  great 
deal  to  be  done  before  even  it  was  a  fit 
camping  place  for  a  night.  Rubbish  had 
to  be  cleared  from  the  rooms  and  hay 
brought  for  beds.  Stevenson  with  pick 
and  shovel  deepened  the  pool  behind  the 
shaft  to  collect  sufficient  water  from  a 
spring  that  trickled  there,  for  their  do- 
mestic uses.  A  fire  was  lit  in  the  black- 
smith's forge  across  from  the  other  larger 
house.  The  afternoon  thus  wore  away 
[93  1 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

to  evening  and  the  baggage  had  not 
arrived,  —  the  royal  family  were  sup- 
perless. 

It  was  between  seven  and  eight  when 
the  Hanson  wagon  with  boxes,  bags,  and 
cold  provender  arrived,  and  much  later 
before  the  baggage  could  all  be  got  up 
the  crazy  ladders  and  the  breakneck 
spout  of  rolling  mineral,  and  landed  in 
the  house.  In  time  the  assayer's  office 
was  thronged  with  their  belongings, 
piled  higgledy-piggledy  and  upside  down, 
about  the  floor.  Then  it  was  discovered 
that  Mrs.  Stevenson  had  left  the  keys  in 
Calistoga,  where  the  chimney  of  the 
stove  had  likewise  been  forgotten.  A 
stove  plate  had  been  lost  somewhere  on 
the  road.  The  important  thing,  how- 
ever, was  at  hand,  food.  The  squat- 
ters ate  that  night  in  the  disorder  of 
the  assayer's  office,  perched  among  the 
boxes.  Hay  brought  from  the  Toll 
House  filled  two  of  the  lowest  bunks  in 
the  tier  of  beds.  A  single  candle,  stuck 
in  the  mouth  of  aT)ottle,  gave  them  light. 
[94] 


# 


--^^ 


*'"t' 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

It  was  a  dismal  beginning,  and  only  a 
determination  to  make  the  best  of  things 
saved  a  retreat  on  the  first  night  of  occu- 
pation and  the  hope  of  the  bright  day  of 
sunshine  a  few  hours  ahead. 

Next  morning  was  full  of  business, 
clearing  up  floors,  patching  up  doors  and 
windows,  substituting  white  cotton  cloth 
for  panes,  making  beds  and  seats  and 
getting  the  rough  lodging  into  livable 
shape.  There  was  wood  to  be  cut  and 
a  young  man,  Mrs.  Hanson's  brother, 
was  engaged  for  the  job.  He  proved 
himself  so  lazy  and  worthless  that  he 
was  more  of  a  nuisance  than  a  help.  He 
was  beautiful  as  a  statue,  but  "had  the 
soul  of  a  fat  sheep. "  It  was  a  cruel 
thought  that  persons  (and  he  meant 
himself)  less  favored  in  their  birth  than 
this  creature,  "endowed  —  to  use  the 
language  of  theatres  —  with  extraordi- 
nary *  means,'  should  so  manage  to  mis- 
employ them,"  said  Stevenson. 

One  morning  there  was  an  occurrence 
that  proved  the  wisdom  of  the  choice  of 
[95  1 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

Silverado  as  a  sanitarium  for  Stevenson. 
A  sea  fog  rolled  in,  filling  the  valley 
and  blotting  out  every  feature  of  the 
country  and  rising  almost  to  the  mine, 
even  so  far  as  the  Toll  House,  and  only 
a  projection  of  the  mountain  saved  their 
own  little  caiion.  It  was  to  flee  these 
fogs,  disastrous  to  his  lungs,  that  Steven- 
son had  left  the  seaboard  and  climbed 
so  high  among  the  mountains.  The  de- 
scription of  this  morning  of  fog  in  Xapa 
Valley,  seen  from  above  from  the  mine 
in  "Silverado  Squatters,"  is  one  of  the 
finest  descriptions  in  all  Stevenson's 
writings. 

The  Toll  House  beside  the  road,  a  little 
over  the  summit  of  the  ridge,  played  a 
great  part  in  the  life  of  the  Stevensons 
that  summer.  There  was  little  traffic 
on  the  Toll  road,  but  at  fixed  hours 
there  arrived  the  stages  daily  crossing 
and  returning  from  Calistoga  to  Lake 
County.  Their  coming  threw  the  quiet, 
sleepy  tavern  into  a  moment  of  life  and 
bustle.  A  little  before  stage  time  the 
[96] 


SEA    FOG     FILLING     NAPA     VALLEY 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

squatters  left  their  aerie,  climbed  down 
the  rickety  ladders,  and  descended  by, 
the  rough  path  through  the  undergrowth 
out  upon  the  highway  and  to  the  Toll 
House.  The  first  of  the  two  stages 
swooped  upon  the  Toll  House  with  a  roar 
and  a  cloud  of  dust.  Hardly  would  the 
horses  be  reined  in  before  the  second 
was  abreast  of  it.  There  was  generally 
a  full  load  of  passengers,  men  in  shirt 
sleeves,  women  swathed  in  veils  and  all 
covered  with  the  dust  of  the  road.  "The 
heart-felt  bustle  of  that  hour  is  hardly 
credible,"  wrote  Stevenson;  "the  childish 
hope  and  interest  with  which  one  gazed 
in  all  these  strangers'  eyes.  They  paused 
there  but  to  pass:  the  blue-clad  China- 
boy,  the  San  Francisco  magnate,  the 
mystery  in  the  dust-coat,  the  secret 
memoirs  in  tweed,  the  ogling,  well-shod 
lady  with  her  troop  of  girls;  they  did 
but  flash  and  go;  they  were  hull  down 
for  us  behind  life's  ocean,  and  we  but 
hailed  their  top-sails  on  the  hue.  Yet, 
out  of  our  great  sohtude  of  four  and 
[97] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

twenty  hours,  we  thrilled  to  their  momen- 
tary presence;  gauged  and  divined  them, 
loved  and  hated;  and  stood  light-headed 
in  that  storm  of  human  electricity." 
In  the  stage  came  also  the  post-bag  with 
its  letters  to  prolong  the  pleasure  of 
communication  with  man,  even  when  the 
huge  and  heavy  stages  had  gone  on  their 
opposite  ways. 

In  the  resumed  silence  on  the  veranda 
of  the  Toll  House,  with  the  green  dell 
below,  the  spires  of  pines,  the  sun- 
warm,  scented  air,  the  letters  and  the 
daily  papers,  bringing  news  of  the  tur- 
bulent world  below,  occupied  a  part  of 
the  afternoon  ere  the  squatters  returned 
to  their  lone  position  at  the  mouth  of  the 
tunnels  to  the  mines. 

There  came  an  interruption  in  life 
at  Silverado.  Mrs.  Stevenson  and  her 
young  son  fell  ill.  The  three  squatters 
had  to  hurry  back  to  Calistoga  and  a 
cottage  on  the  green.  It  is  no  small 
amount  of  labor  that  it  costs  to  support 
life  even  amid  the  simple  surroundings 
[98] 


r 


^im 


m 


FRENCH     RESIDENCE    OF    STEVENSON 

Whence    He    Despatched    His    Letter   to    S  i  i?i  o  n  e  a  u    and 
Finished   "Silverado    Squatters'' 


IX     CALIFORNIA 

of  a  mountain  canon.  It  was  desired  to 
find  a  China-boy  to  take  back  with  them 
on  their  return.  This  wish  could  not  be 
realized  for  no  China-boy  could  be  found 
that  was  willing  to  go. 

But  the  Stevensons  were  not,  how- 
ever, to  return  alone.  Joe  Strong,  Mrs. 
Stevenson's  son-in-law,  joined  them  at 
Calistoga  and  returned  "home"  with 
them.  The  journey  up  the  mountain 
side  this  time  was  made  in  the  dark. 
There  was  a  display  of  stars  for  a  short 
time  before  the  moon  rose  that  night, 
such  as  Stevenson  had  never  before 
seen.  *'The  difference  between  a  calm 
and  a  hurricane  is  not  greatly  more 
striking  than  that  between  the  ordinary 
face  of  night  and  the  splendor  that  shone 
upon  us  in  that  drive.  Two  in  our 
wagon  knew  night  as  she  shines  upon 
the  tropics,  but  even  that  bore  no  com- 
parison. The  nameless  color  of  the  sky, 
the  hues  of  the  star-fire,  and  the  incred- 
ible projection  of  the  stars  themselves, 
starting  from  their  orbits,  so  that  the 
[99] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

eye  seemed  to  distinguish  their  positions 
in  the  hollow  of  space  —  these  were 
things  that  we  had  never  seen  before  and 
shall  never  see  again.  The  sunlight 
flooded  the  pale  islet  of  the  moon,  and 
her  ht  face  put  out,  one  after  another, 
that  galaxy  of  stars.  The  wonder  of 
the  drive  was  over;  but,  by  some  nice 
conjunction  of  clearness  in  the  air  and 
fir  shadow  in  the  valley  where  we  trav- 
elled, we  had  seen  for  a  little  while  that 
brave  display  of  the  midnight  heavens. 
It  was  gone,  but  it  had  been;  nor  shall 
I  ever  again  behold  the  stars  with  the 
same  mind." 

Only  in  a  climate  like  that  of  Califor- 
nia was  such  a  life  as  that  of  the  squat- 
ters possible.  The  house  was  everywhere 
so  \\Tecked  and  shattered,  the  air  came 
and  went  so  freely,  the  sun  found  so 
many  port -holes,  the  light  came  through 
so  many  chinks,  that  life  under  its  roof 
was  much  the  same  as  alfresco.  A  sin- 
gle shower  of  rain  would  have  made 
the  place  uninhabitable.  Moreover,  the 
[100] 


s     > 

s     o 
o 


i 


I 


IX     CALIFORNIA 

cabin  answered  only  for  bedroom  and 
kitchen.  On  the  earth  platform  in  front, 
or  in  the  shade  of  the  madronas  in  the 
httle  corner  near  the  forge,  were  passed 
all  the  hours  of  daylight. 

In  the  first  hours  of  the  morning  Ste- 
venson, as  was  his  wont,  always  did  his 
writing.  For  the  rest  of  the  day,  it  was 
spent  lying  down  or  wandering  on  the 
platform,  carrying  a  few  pails  of  water 
from  the  shaft,  meeting  the  stage  at  the 
Toll  House,  and  a  long  evening,  again 
umjer  the  stars  on  the  platform. 
yT  It  was  a  good  hfe  for  Stevenson 
and  brought  him  rest,  contentment,  and 
health.  It  could  not  have  endured.  Such 
a  life  is  only  for  a  season  for  human 
beings,  and  for  Stevenson,  with  all  his 
love  for  change  and  new  experiences  and 
problems,  it  could  not  have  gone  on  long. 
But  before  he  had  begun  to  weary, 
before  his  restless  spirit  began  to  assert 
itself,  there  came  a  letteF  from  Edin- 
burgh from  his  father  and  mother  beg- 
ging for  his  return  home.  They  wearied 
[101] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

c       , 

f 

to  see  their  son  and  there  was  a  welcome 
extended  to  his  new  wife  and  his  step- 
son. 

Yielding  to  their  desires,  late  in  July, 
Silverado  was  deserted.  The  Stevensons 
returned  to  San  Francisco  only  to  pre- 
pare for  the  journey  to  Scotland.  So 
just  about  a  year  from  the  time  Stevenson 
first  set  foot  in  California  he  bade  good- 
bye to  those  Western  shores.  On  the 
seventh  day  of  August,  1880,  he  took 
passage  from  New  York  bound  for  his 
Scottish  home;  and  California  knew  him 
no  more  for  a  while. 

Silverado,  however,  had  not  fully  estab- 
lished his  health.  It  was  too  wracked 
for  any  complete  cure.  The  whole  his- 
tory of  the  succeeding  years  was  one 
weary  search  from  place  to  place,  coun- 
try to  country,  for  a  climate  and  con- 
ditions where  he  could  have  even  a 
small  measure  of  health.  Again  and 
again  hemorrhages  from  the  lungs 
brought  him  to  the  point  of  death,  and 
weeks  and  months  at  a  time  he  was 
[  102  ] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

scarcely  out  of  his  bedroom.  "I  think 
I  was  made,  what  there  is  of  me,  of  whip- 
cord and  thorn  switches.  Surely  I  am 
tough,"  was  his  comment  on  coming 
through  so  many  terrible  illnesses. 

He  kept  on  at  his  work  when  he  was 
at  all  able;  but  that  was  his  pleasure 
and  the  only  thing  that  made  his  life 
tolerable  through  languor  and  pain;  and 
expression  is  always  the  artist's  neces- 
sity and  supremest  joy. 

"An  art  is  a  fine  fortune,  a  palace  in  a 
park,  a  band  of  music,  health,  and  physi- 
cal beauty;  all  but  love  —  to  any  worthy 
practiser.  I  sleep  upon  my  art  for  a 
pillow;  I  waken  in  my  art;  I  am  un- 
ready for  death  because  I  hate  to  leave 
it.  I  love  my  wife,  I  do  not  know  how 
much,  nor  can,  nor  shall,  unless  I  lost 
her;  but  while  I  can  conceive  my  being 
widowed,  I  refuse  the  offering  of  life 
without  my  art.  I  am  not  but  in  my 
art;  it  is  me.  I  am  the  body  of  it 
merely." 

Far  away  and  through  changuig  scenes 
[103] 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON 

he  never  forgot  his  CaHf ornia  experiences 
nor  his  CaHf  ornia  friends.  To  the  num- 
ber was  added  in  Samoa  Thomas  Wilkin- 
son of  Oakland,  whom  he  met  in  Apia. 
During  his  stay  in  the  islands  Mr.  Wil- 
kinson was  much  at  Vailima.  \Mien  he 
returned  home  to  Oakland,  Stevenson, 
acknowledging  for  Mrs.  Stevenson  a  gift 
of  roses  Mr.  Wilkinson  had  sent  her,  said: 
"Present  our  respects  to  Mrs.  and  Miss 
Wilkinson.  Tell  them  they  ought  to  be 
nice  people,  —  they  are  certainly  for- 
tunate in  a  husband  and  a  father;  and 
add  that  if  you  lost  fifty-six  pounds 
weight,  you  left  it  all  behind  here  in  the 
shape  of  good  will." 

**The  Wrecker"  was  not  the  only  book 
written  in  the  South  Sea  which  referred 
to  California.  There  are  verses  and 
there  is  also  the  "Bottle  Imp."  Keawe 
received  the  bottle  from  an  elderly  man, 
living  in  one  of  the  great  houses  on  Nob 
Hill  in  San  Francisco. 

In  1877,  the  death  of  his  father, 
Thomas  Stevenson,  the  distinguished  en- 
[104] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

gineer,  cut  the  bond  that  held  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  to  Europe.  His  mother 
was  ready  to  go  with  him  anywhere  that 
would  give  him  health  and  happiness. 
So  with  her  and  his  wife  and  step-son, 
Lloyd  Osbourne,  he  sailed  again  for 
America. 

He  stopped  the  winter  in  the  Adiron- 
dack Mountains,  which  greatly  strength- 
ened him  for  the  time  being;  but  a  yacht 
and  the  glory  of  the  sea  and  in  particular 
the  beautiful  blue  Pacific,  which  he  had 
learned  to  love  in  Monterey,  were  loudly 
trailing  him.  And  so  in  June,  1888,  he 
found  himself  in  San  Francisco  once 
more. 

On  the  first  morning  after  his  arrival, 
with  his  mother  to  accompany  him,  — 
for  she  wished  to  go  to  thank  Mrs. 
Carson  herself  for  all  she  had  been  to 
her  boy  that  long  sad  winter  he  spent  in 
her  house,  —  he  found  himself  again  in 
Bush  Street,  passed  in  front  of  Donadieu's 
restaurant,  and,  climbing  the  hill,  arrived 
at  the  old  number,  608.  But  the  house 
[105] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

in  which  Stevenson  had  Hved  was  gone 
and  a  new  one  had  taken  its  place,  and 
Mrs.  Carson,  too,  was  gone. 

The  Stevensons  were  staying  at  the 
old  Occidental  Hotel  on  Montsjomerv 
Street.  Stevenson  got  into  communica- 
tion with  Mrs.  Carson  and  sent  for  her 
to  come  to  the  hotel,  as  has  already  been 
related.  His  strength  had  been  terribly 
exhausted  by  the  trip  across  the  conti- 
nent. It  was  by  sheer  force  of  will  alone 
that  he  had  kept  his  little  spark  of  life 
from  going  out  entirely. 

But  he  greatly  longed  for  this  voyage 
he  had  so  often  dreamed  of  since  his  first 
visit  to  Stoddard's  rooms  on  Telegraph 
Hill,  and  even  before  that.  When  he 
was  a  boy  of  seventeen,  Mr.  Seed,  of 
New  Zealand,  told  him  of  Samoa:  "Beau- 
tiful places,  green  forever;  beautiful 
people,  with  red  flowers  in  their  hair  and 
nothing  to  do  but  study  oratory  and  eti- 
quette." To  these  accounts  he  had  sat 
up  all  night  to  listen,  and  was  sick  with 
desire  to  go  there;  so  it  was  by  deter- 
[1061 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

mination  alone  thdt  he  lived  to  reach 
San  Francisco,  and  through  the  days  of 
preparation  in  fitting  out  a  yacht  for  the 
intended  cruise.  His  friends  had  all  to 
seek  him  at  the  Occidental  Hotel,  where 
he  was  scarcely  an  hour  out  of  bed. 

Mrs.  WilHams,  always  ready  to  be  of 
assistance  to  him,  remembers  accom- 
panying him  to  the  bank,  to  arrange 
about  his  money  and  drafts  and  remit- 
tances while  he  should  be  away  in  the 
yacht. 

How  Stevenson  chartered  the  schooner 
3'acht  Casco,  seventy  tons.  Captain  Otis, 
owned  by  Dr.  Merritt,  of  Oakland,  is  all 
known  to  histor}\  Several  weeks,  part 
of  which  time  Stevenson  berthed  aboard 
when  the  vacht  lav  in  the  Oakland 
estuary,  were  spent  in  fitting  her  out  for 
a  six  months'  cruise  to  the  Marquesas, 
Tahiti,  and  the  Paumotos,  and  how 
Stevenson  never  came  back,  but  found 
health  and  happiness  and  seven  years  of 
added  life  among  the  South  Sea  Islands, 
is  also  known. 

[  107  1 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

His  stay  turned  into  exile,  for  he  found 
that  only  in  the  South  Seas  could  he  live; 
and  sad  days  and  longing  for  familiar 
friends  and  faces  succeeded,  especially 
in  the  last  years  of  his  life;  but  he  never 
again  even  ventured  so  far  as  San  Fran- 
cisco. "The  mere  extent  of  a  man's 
travel  has  in  it  something  consolatory. 
That  he  should  have  left  friends  and 
enemies  in  many  different  and  distant 
quarters  gives  a  sort  of  earthly  dignity 
to  his  existence;  and  I  think  the  better 
of  myself  for  the  belief  that  I  have  left 
some  in  California  interested  in  me  and 
my  success." 

Letters  to  Mrs.  Williams  arrived  from 
Samoa;  and  in  that  island  where  he 
made  his  home  he  found  one  last  little 
connection  with  California  in  the  friend- 
ship of  Mr.  Wilkinson,  of  Oakland,  who 
went  to  Apia,  Samoa,  to  try  its  effect 
on  his  failing  health.  Mr.  Wilkinson  had 
many  pleasant  conferences  with  Steven- 
son when  he  rode  down  from  his  moun- 
tain home,  Vailima,  to  the  beach,  and 
[108] 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

when  Mr.  Wilkinson  visited  Vailima. 
At  the  time,  Mrs.  Stevenson  was  much 
engaged  in  making  and  planting  some 
flower  beds;  and  on  his  return  to  Oak- 
land Mr.  Wilkinson  sent  Mrs.  Stevenson 
some  roses  for  her  garden. 

We  have  spoken  of  "The  Wrecker"  and  ' 
the  description  of  the  entrance  into  Cali- 
fornia. Other  parts  of  this  book  are  full 
of  characters  and  places  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. "The  Speedy,"  while  not  them 
in  entirety,  was  suggested  by  the  Car- 
sons  and  their  propensity  to  gamble  in 
mining  stocks,  no  matter  how  wild-cat. 
To  San  Francisco  again  his  mind  re- 
verted in  the  story  of  "The  Bottle  - 
Imp,"  written  in  Samoa  for  Samoans, 
and  the  bottle  was  first  found  in  the 
possession  of  one  living  on  Nob  Hill. 

With  a  mind  quickened  and  tuned  with 
his  Western  experiences,  his  memory 
stored  with  its  incidents,  bound  with  ties 
of  friendship,  in  a  pecuHar  sense  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  was  a  Cahfornian.  The 
great  State  may  wear  him  as  one  of  the 
[109] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

brightest  jewels,  and  pay  honor  and 
homage  to  his  memon^  as,  if  adopted, 
the  most  loving  and  gifted  and  brave 
of  her  sons. 

THE    LITTLE    BRONZE    SHIP 

By  W.  O.  McGeeh-OI 

Read  at  the  Stevenson  Fellowship  Banquet  at  San  Francisco 
on  Stevensons  birthday,  Nov.  13,  1909. 

AMien  the  night  comes,  the  Httle  bronze 
ship  on  the  Stevenson  Monument,  Ports- 
mouth Square,  San  Francisco,  seems  to  grow 
restless  in  the  moonlight.  Sometimes  it  is 
said  the  little  vessel  puts  out  on  a  cruise  to 
the  southwest  manned  by  a  phantom  crew. 


110 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

LEGEND  OF  PORTSMOUTH  SQUARE 

Oh,  the  little  bronze  ship  at  the  anchor  chain 
tugs 

And  the  light  on  the  bright  sails  gleams. 

In  the  moonshine  and  mist  it  is  headed  south- 
west 

For  a  cruise  on  the  sea  of  dreams. 

All  deserted  the  anchorage  place  in  the  square, 

There  are  none  who  may  look  at  it  now; 

With  a  brave  off-shore  wind  that  is  warning 
behind 

It  is  churning  the  foam  with  its  prow. 

With  a  queer  phantom  crew  it  is  off  on  the 

blue. 
And  the  blocks  in  the  rigging  ring. 
When  the  wraith  voices  rise  to  the  tropical 

skies 
And  this  is  the  song  that  they  sing: 
^'Fifteen  men  on  a  dead  man's  chest, 
Yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle  of  rum! 
Drink  and  the  devil  hod  done  with  the  rest, 
Yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle  of  rum!'' 

There   is   Morgan,   and   Merry,    and   savage 

Long  John 
With  his  crutch,  on  the  little  bronze  ship. 
And  old  Smollett,  the  Skipper,  is  shaking  his 

head, 

[111] 


ROBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 

As  he  thinks  of  that  other  trip; 
And  the  oracle  parrot,  the  sage  Captain  Flinty 
Still  is  chatfring  of  bloodshed  and  wreck. 
With  his  big  dreamy  eyes  staring  up  at  the  skies, 
See,  the  master  is  pacing  the  deck. 

There  are  doubloons  and  loot,  there  is  battle 

to  boot. 
Ere  they  ever  return  to  their  port; 
With  a  rhythmical  swing  now  the  crew^s  voices 

ring 
In  a  song  of  a  gruesome  sort: 
''Fifteen  men  on  a  dead  mans  chest, 
Yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle  of  rum! 
Drink  and  the  devil  had  done  with  the  rest, 
Yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle  of  ruviT^ 

Oh,  the  little  bronze  ship  has  returned  to  its  place 

To  the  stone  by  the  poplar  trees. 

And  the  little  bronze  sails  though  they  gleam 
in  tJie  sun 

Will  not  answer  the  morning  breeze. 

Now  the  ghost  song  has  died  on  the  pale  phan- 
tom lips. 

And  gone  are  the  mast  and  the  men. 

And  the  little  bronze  ship  is  back  safe  from  the 
trip 

Till  it  goes  on  a  cruise  again. 

There  it  lies  through  the  day,  till  the  noise 
dies  away 

[1121 


IN     CALIFORNIA 

Aiid  the  moonshine  is  soft  on  the  square: 
Then  its  queer  phantom  crew  take  it  out  on 

the  blue 
And  their  chanty  rings  weird  on  the  air: 
^'Fifteen  men  on  a  dead  mans  chest, 
Yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle  of  rum! 
Drink  and  the  devil  had  done  unth  the  rest, 
Yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle  of  rum^ 


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